


desideratum

by sithanakin



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Canon-Typical Violence, Clone Wars, F/M, Force-Sensitive Padmé Amidala, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Padmé Amidala, Love Confessions, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Mentions of Slavery, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, Possessive Anakin Skywalker, Possessive Behavior, Protective Anakin Skywalker, Protectiveness, Slavery, Slow Burn, Temporarily Unrequited Love, but read the first note for a slightly more in-depth take on how i'm writing this relationship, padme is anakin's padawan - that's basically the premise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:54:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24628147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sithanakin/pseuds/sithanakin
Summary: As a young Initiate in the midst of a childish crush, Padmé had always dreamt of Anakin Skywalker becoming her Master. But she was to turn thirteen too early for that to be possible.Then, at sixteen, she loses her Master in the battle of Geonosis. In the confusion of all her grief, she does not expect newly-knighted Anakin Skywalker to offer to take her on as his Padawan.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala & Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala & Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 93
Kudos: 151





	1. upon meeting

**Author's Note:**

> desideratum: something that is needed or wanted.
> 
> i'll be adding tags - like the character ones - as the fic progresses, so it doesn't clog up the tags of those characters, etc. when they're not yet in it. so more faves will be coming (like clones!!!)
> 
> there's an age gap reversal in this fic, here anakin is four years older than padmé. and please do not worry, _nothing underage will happen,_ it's a one-sided thing from Padmé for quite a bit
> 
>  _also,_ i'm trying to write this in a way that doesn't pervert the usual master/padawan bond dynamics, bc i love them as largely platonic and/or filial bonds (i adore found families!). 
> 
> but bc anakin and padmé start their bond differently and padmé already has feelings for anakin - and she's already had that bond with another master before, their bond develops differently. it's not like obi-wan and anakin's, anakin and ahsoka's or qui-gon and obi-wan's, so please don't think i'm trying to make this sleazy or manipulative!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anakin is angry and he meets padmé.

Obi-Wan is more than aware of Anakin’s anger. The way frustration seeds itself in the teenager’s brain and leaves him both restless and short-tempered. Part of him knows that Anakin’s struggle isn’t his fault. He isn’t like the other Padawan Learners; the temple did not raise him and reside as the only place he knows as home. He and Anakin are fundamentally different in that respect. Obi-Wan only knows the temple and the ways of the Jedi. Anakin knows more, knows beyond that.

He cannot blame Anakin for that fact and he never does, despite what the Padawan may think of Obi-Wan’s opinions. 

Still, he tries in earnest to help him and provide him all the aid that he can. It’s simply that he and Anakin do not know how they can help each other. Anakin’s explanations are crude and straightforward, loaded with logic that doesn’t align with Obi-Wan’s own. Neither of them are wrong, he can see that. What is right for Obi-Wan, is not for Anakin.

It’s a fundamental issue that Obi-Wan has been aware of since the beginning and this current spate in Anakin’s angst is a stark, headache-inducing reminder of that.

Obi-Wan’s Padawan can hardly sit still for thirty minutes to meditate on a good day, but today, Anakin is struggling to sit down at all. Most often, this would be tempered by Obi-Wan’s insistence that he do as he is told. However, Obi-Wan can understand that there is something different about Anakin’s emotions today. Neither of them knows why, but Anakin had returned home from a meeting with Sheev Palpatine wound up tight enough that Obi-Wan thought he may explode. And nothing was aiding Anakin in relaxing into himself.

He only tries to coax Anakin into a meditative pose four times before sighing, resigning to attempt something different. 

“Would you like to pilot somewhere, Anakin?” He suggests, knowing how much the teen adores submerging himself in the Force to move at speed through any course.

Anakin’s expression sours, twisting up every feature of his face, and Obi-Wan is shocked by his refusal. Anakin often resorts to sneaking from the temple to do any type of piloting outside of his class teachings. Yet, he is rejecting Obi-Wan’s offer outright. This is explicit permission to do what he is oft punished for, and he is turning away from it with a mutedly murmured: “I would only be distracted. I feel it in the Force.”

Bewildered by the response, Obi-Wan accepts it with a thoughtful gaze upon his Padawan. Something familiar and comforting presses in his head, the Force, guiding Obi-Wan to see that Anakin is right. Leaving the temple would do more harm than good for anyone. It would take this tumult and unleash it upon the citizens of Coruscant, defeating the entire objective of the Order they both live under. Following that guidance, Obi-Wan reaches for another solution and finds it hanging from Anakin’s hip.

So, he ushers the grumbling, frowning teen to the training Salles and lets him loose on the droids programmed to mimic battle. They’re dispatched of with ferocity and tenacity, Anakin shining with sweat well before Obi-Wan entices his Padawan into a duel. He hopes he can provide the teen with some degree of a challenge, something less predictable than a droid. Their styles have always complemented one another in tandem and in opposition; Obi-Wan defending when Anakin attacks. 

Still, Anakin’s enraged slashes usually refine themselves when his anger ebbs away. He would be cleaner in his movements and more precise with his hits. At least, that is what occurs on the days when sparring aids him in moving on from his anger. Nevertheless, he appears to have an endless well of it to consume him on this occasion.

It throws Obi-Wan off kilter.

The energy burns out of Anakin within three hours, most often. But they’re battling each other on the floors of the Salle well into the night, until the bright grey of Coruscant’s morning would be breaking outside if they could see it. And, all it appears to do is make Anakin feel worse, as if the rough actions feed into whatever is consuming him from within.

The acrimonious and incessant pinch of Anakin’s emotions on their bond grows to the point where it almost hurts in Obi-Wan’s mind, causing a stumble in Obi-Wan’s form, and he knows that not even this is helping. Tiredness aches in his bones and the sheer power of Anakin’s emotions are crippling Obi-Wan himself, despite being somewhat disconnected through their filtered bond. He cannot begin to imagine what Anakin was feeling.

“Anakin, stop!” Obi-Wan commands, using his misstep to his advantage. Anakin would not continue to swing at his Master in a moment of weakness. “This isn’t helping.”

Expecting the teen to erupt on him, Obi-Wan is gently surprised when Anakin visibly deflates with a bobbing nod of the head. 

“I agree, Master,” Anakin mutters, the glowing blade of his lightsaber disappearing into its hilt. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today. I felt fine when I woke up, but I just can’t stop feeling _furious_ at absolutely nothing.”

Drawing a complete loss when he sees just how much his Padawan is trembling, Obi-Wan is pained by the sight of stress calling tears to Anakin’s eyes to match his tortured grimace. He knows to hold back a comment about the dark side that bites at the back of his throat. That would not help his Padawan now, it would only drive him to fear his emotions even more. A cycle would begin, one of being frightened of being enraged and enraged at being frightened, one that would ball up inside the teen. 

The very last thing Anakin needs is to be reminded of how to avoid the darkness. The teen knows it, he’s heard it countless times, and he needs something other than a repeat of the tenets.

“Perhaps, if he is awake, we should seek the guidance of Master Yoda?”

It’s a suggestion that Anakin recoils from most often. Authority never settles well into his bones. The only authority he truly ever knew was unhealthy and damaging, of Slavers and the small explosives they’d plant beneath their slaves’ flesh. He had the scar from his chip to prove it, along with a few others Obi-Wan never found the true courage to ask for the source of. Yoda was not a Slaver, but he wielded some degree of power. The fact that it was a peaceful sort of influence, not one of abuse and exploitation, did not mollify Anakin’s defiance of it. On an elementary level, Obi-Wan cannot understand how Anakin could feel like that, but he knew it was not his place to judge where his Padawan had come from. It was his job to guide Anakin away from that school of thought, not judge him for it.

“Yes, anything to take me out of my head.” His voice shakes, it is lost and heavy.

Hearing those words from Anakin’s mouth breaks Obi-Wan’s heart, knowing he is useless in helping his pained Padawan and that even he, the most resistant to asking for help, is openly heeding his need for it now. Something must be entirely wrong in the Force—within Anakin—for him to turn to Yoda so quickly.

They clip their lightsabers and Anakin follows behind his Master, brooding just as intensely as before, but his anger is rimmed with sadness now. Obi-Wan can sense it in their connection and all it serves to do is urge the Force to guide them to Yoda faster, more swiftly, so Anakin can find some release from his pain. 

Obi-Wan almost topples over his own feet with relief when the small green being rounds a corner ahead of them, his presence already a balm for Obi-Wan. Less so for Anakin, he can sense that, but they both hold hope that Yoda can provide assistance.

“Much distress between you, I sense,” is what Yoda speaks aloud to regard them, a knowing frown pinching above his large eyes. “Skywalker, the source is.”

“Yes, Master Yoda,” Anakin admits, nostrils flaring, and eyes rimmed with red. Another grimace, a bearing of teeth, accompanies the confession.

They are all starkly aware that Yoda will most likely go to the Council to inform them of this volatility within Anakin, and the teen still divulges such information openly. Despite evident reluctance to say as much, there is no biting remark, nor any true flare in the anger rushing through their bond. Anakin is choosing honesty, he is choosing to seek help, rather than pursuing his usual course of action, which is to press into his fury and rebel. Obi-Wan keeps the pride that sings for his Padawan to himself, hoping to see how far Anakin’s openness can go without explicit encouragement.

“Helped in the past, flying has?”

“Yes, but I–,” Anakin takes a breath in, still trying to self-soothe, even though it appears to be futile. He turns to Obi-Wan, searching for his guidance, or possibly to say what Anakin cannot bring himself to and be his mouthpiece.

Already admitting fault to Yoda has done so much to his Padawan, likely originating in his somewhat un-Jedi-like pride. He is still learning to let that go, taking the steps he needs to until he is at one with the Force’s serenity. Turning to his Master to find the words for him is already an admission within itself.

Another flare of pride surges within Obi-Wan.

Covering his chin with one hand, prodding at the bond with Anakin, Obi-Wan pinpoints the distinct fear of Anakin being let out into Coruscant. The act of flying may aid him, but they were both aware of his recklessness. If Anakin is fearful of what he would do, Obi-Wan certainly is, too. He finds himself sighing, “I do not think leaving the temple would be the appropriate course of action. We have both felt as such in the Force.”

“Most peculiar, this is,” Yoda notes, bringing his two tri-clawed hands atop his walking staff. “Perhaps a new solution, we can find? Come with me, you both shall.”

They move quietly through the halls, keeping a slow pace to remain behind Yoda and allow him to lead the path they are going to take. Anakin’s hands are hidden in his sleeves, much like Obi-Wan’s, and he wonders if they are curled into fists. It’s something he’s seen Anakin do since he learnt that he had to temper his anger to find a place in the Order, something so indicative of Anakin _trying_ to do the right thing. Balled fists from Anakin are both an admittance that he still wishes to grow to be a Jedi Knight and that he understands that his anger must be calmed. Obi-Wan wishes he could see the teen’s hands, just to gauge in some unconscious way how this bout is impacting his ability to think as a Jedi.

The hands remain out of view. Obi-Wan feels lost, aware that he must meditate to gather himself again after a restless night. He chances a look at Anakin, hoping to see something more positive there. 

He is let down by reality, confronted by the sight of his Padawan’s head bowed downwards in some kind of shame, eyes framed by the redness of despair. Reaching into his own mind, Obi-Wan wonders what Anakin’s mother would do to help her son, and he knows the answer lies outside of the Jedi Code. 

But that is where he falls short, he knows nothing but the Jedi Code. Anakin’s needs and what Obi-Wan can offer him as a guardian misaligns, leaving him with nothing but to hope Yoda’s idea can calm the waters. 

⁂

Even when muddled and blinded by his anger, Anakin can sense that they are heading towards the Crèche. He wants to question why, but fears that he may choke on a sob if he breathes out a single word. This is unlike anything he has ever felt before. He hadn’t even been this furious when he had seen his mother punished before him. He hadn’t felt this confused and affronted when he was informed that joining the Jedi Order would mean never seeing his mother again. 

When he looks inside, it’s thick and dark. A smokescreen that he cannot seem to break through, no matter how desperately he tries.

He wants to be rid of this endless fury, struggling with it so much that it feels like a physical weight in his mind and on his chest. The Force moves awkwardly through him, as if aware of this dense layer of dark that clings like Gungan spittle should not occupy his mind.

Anakin feels lost, both within himself and in the fact that he is being brought to the Crèche, despite being two years too old to be within its walls as a student.

Surprisingly, it’s his Master that raises the question of: “Master Yoda, may I ask where we are heading?”

“Refreshing, the younglings can be,” Yoda hums in that way he does, that sounds so grandfatherly that Anakin’s entire being retracts sharply from the sound, as if burnt by it.. “When times are unclear, bask in their light, I do.”

There’s a turn of Yoda’s head towards Anakin and there is something to be read there, an impression left in both the Master’s gaze and the soft brush of the Master against his mind. The first, that the power of Anakin’s connection with the Force means he shall feel even more acutely the brightness within the younglings than Yoda himself does. The second, that he should try to open himself up to not only feel the periphery of the younglings, but to actively welcome their peaceful light into his mind. 

Obeying, rather more willingly than he usually would, he lowers part of the shields that he raises so naturally now. The ones that curb his sensitivity to others and defend others of how overwhelming his power is to those outside of his head. He does not let much of himself leak out, holding back the dam of his fury, but allowing more of the presence of those around him into his mind. They continue to move, Anakin less aware of his physical surroundings but discerning the Force presences with so much more ease.

He only knows to stop moving when the intensity of Yoda’s light remains still before him and Anakin has to blink repeatedly to see the walls and bodies around him once more.

There is no mistaking that they are outside of a room when Anakin’s world focuses back on the physical, leaving the visceral. Already, a sharp, scathing edge of his anger is blunted by the action of hemming it in to acknowledge the lightness of others. It’s still there, though, waiting like a Nexu with only one tooth and one claw missing. Still abrasive and damaging, still hunting him down on the inside to smother everything.

“Enter, you should. Help, the younglings will,” Yoda instructs, phrasing it like a request that Anakin knows he should not refuse..

With uncharacteristic hesitance, Anakin does not head straight towards the doors. He is wholly unsure of how helpful these younglings shall be, being around them has only ever drawn him to annoyance.

He can remember back to the classes he did have, of holding frustration towards his peers for how slowly they were on the uptake of concepts already fully fleshed out and known to Anakin. He had not been around the younglings since he, himself, had been one. And, given his age and situation, that had not been very long either. There was little for him to draw upon in regard to Jedi Initiates, either ostracised by them or withdrawn from them out of his own choice. He simply did not know what they could do for him that his Master could not. They, too, were raised within the confines of the temple, just like Obi-Wan. They did not know the life on Tatooine. 

Which only leaves him to recall his peers and friends on the hellish desert planet. They had been both friendly and cruel, wanting the best for one another but hampered by the fact they were slaves. The kindest acts most of them knew was to receive a verbal assault, rather than physical, from their Slavers. That was the kindness they knew. It bled into their interactions, even just before Anakin left, with their words of support coming out harsh and clipped. 

There was no place amongst children that he found to be positive, to be something cherished or that could help nurse his feelings any more than they already had. He knows he must voice this, let his apprehension be known before it solidifies into fear.

“Masters, I am no good around children… I worry that my patience will run thin with them.” He is being impossibly honest today; he wonders what it is about this dark feeling that has him clawing for help from his Master and Master Yoda. But, as he spoke that anxious thought aloud, the Force left him with the impression that he had said something wrong. That he should not worry about his patience, that the Force will show him differently..

Similarly to the impression the Force leaves within him, Yoda stares at him imperceptibly yet expectantly, and Anakin feel his Master’s gentle urging in his head. He looks between the two of them, hands balled up tightly in his sleeves. He flexes his fingers then relaxes them, approaching the sliding door with two slow, stretched steps.

Inside is not a teaching room. In fact, it is as recreational of a space as the Jedi can get, Anakin assumes. It’s a self-study area, where Initiates can speak and act almost freely with other members of their clan. It’s monstrously loud, bustling with life, until one by one they all notice Anakin’s presence in the room with them.

Beings of all kinds, all far shorter than he, quieten and look up to him in some shrouded sense of awe. He is a towering teenager, especially for a human, and his anger must show darkly on his face. He can sense apprehension and even mild levels of fear, which all of them release into the force almost as soon as the feeling is recognised.

He envies them and the ease in which they handle their emotions, especially in the face of a relative stranger. It is evident he’s a Padawan, from his braid and clothing, not to mention the lightsaber. Yet, they all handle it in the way all other Jedi but Anakin seem to.

It is something that is second nature to them. Whereas he has to suffer with it. He has to be proactive in releasing emotions into the Force, relying on either himself or his Master to remember the tenets of the Jedi Code, of not allowing emotions to rule him. He is nothing of what these younglings are, and it hurts. It pains him more than his Master’s disappointment because of it.

They best him in this integral aspect of being a Jedi. And they’re _younglings._

It begins to feel like a bitter sting to be amongst them. As if Yoda and his Master were attempting to show him his faults so plainly, to show him what he is not but what these Initiates _are._ He is ready to turn on his heel, to demand to know why they would humiliate him like this, but a girl steps forward.

Beyond her being human, the first thing Anakin notices is her hair. Bound up in an ornate set of twists, her hair does not rest plainly upon her head like the other Initiates’. If it had been adorned with a headpiece and jewels, it would sit like a crown, but such decoration is absent. It leaves only her hair to be the splendour, which draws his attention, it is something that appears to be the opposite of the Jedi way. However, none of the other Initiates pay any extra regard to her hair, likely meaning she does not do it to draw gaze upon herself.

From what he can tell, her hair is both thick and long, most probably bound up like that to keep it all tamed and away from her face.. 

Everything else about her blends into what he knows of the Jedi. Her robes are plain, her face bears an even expression, her lightsaber rests on her hip and her posture is both relaxed and self-assured. This girl, without a doubt within Anakin’s mind, even uncaring of her hair, embraces the Jedi code. He partially lets his mind open, to get a feel of her, and she is not overly strong in the Force. Likely, she only _just_ has the right Midichlorian count to be admitted to the temple, but what she does have is pure light. 

“I am Jedi Initiate Padmé Amidala Naberrie,” is how her introduction goes in a light, lilting voice, bowing slightly. So confident and calm for a young Initiate..

When she looks back up at him, she smiles, showing him a set of milk teeth that are interspersed with adult ones growing. She is likely to be of nine or ten standard years old, missing a canine that would have fallen out recently, close to the age he had been when he had first arrived at the temple. Her cheeks are round, flushed with a healthy glow, and Anakin glances around to the rest of the younglings. They, too, all look incredibly healthy. Far beyond the slave children Anakin used to know, and he had never properly realised it when he had arrived. 

He was skinny, certainly on the scrawny side, no matter how much his mother attempted to feed him. And he hadn’t noticed all the extra flesh on the other younglings’ bodies then. 

He was far too occupied with trying to not miss his mother or to prove himself in some way to Obi-Wan.

Awkwardly, shaking those thoughts from his head, he bows back, clearing his throat to say, “I am Padawan Anakin Skywalker.”

At the voicing of his name, chatter bursts amongst the Initiates, all aware of who he is and the reputation he appears to have seeded in the temple. However, Padmé does not engage in such talk, she looks at him evenly and nods her head slightly. 

In fact, she goes beyond that, she reaches out to grab at the cuff of his sleeve and tugs at it. There’s a similar feeling to it as when Obi-Wan prods at their bond to either encourage or dissuade Anakin from completing an action, and with the light ebbing so plainly from this girl, Anakin follows. She shows him to a seat, one far too small for him, but he takes it anyway. She sits before him but still close, smiling as she releases her hold on his clothing and tilting her head. The other younglings approach them, with Anakin’s height and sudden appearance no longer startling them. 

Some sit in the seats next to and opposite him, others take place on the floor, and all of their eyes are glossy and wide. There is a veil of amazement on all of their gazes and Anakin doesn’t quite know what to do. He shifts in his seat, fingers curling around the edge of his sleeves, unable to find the words within him to speak.

Silence falls upon the room once more, leaving Anakin to nervously glance from Initiate to Initiate. Their stares are unwavering, and it unnerves him, wondering if he was ever anywhere near this strange as a child. 

It’s a Twi’lek, whose flesh is such a pale blue that Anakin could mistake it for being an icy white, who speaks first. She twiddles her fingers, shuffling as unsurely in her seat as Anakin had in his own.

“Is it true you were raised outside of the temple?” It’s an easy question, one Anakin always understood could be taken as a scandalous rumour within the Order, especially amongst the younglings who had no concept of any Jedi ever being raised outside of the temple walls.

He nods, placing his hands on his lap, “I was, yes. On a planet far from here.”

That draws the younglings’ attention even more raptly to him, their lips suddenly abuzz with questions and small factoids they had picked up about the galaxy outside of the temple walls. There was barely any talk of family or personal relationships, those were taught about in classes from a young age, for which Anakin was thankful. He was in no fit state to even try to mention his mother, or his upbringing. Instead, they asked him everything they wouldn’t usually ask a Knight or Master. They wished to know about what people did if they weren’t training, all of their eyes blowing wide when he told them that people had hobbies and attended events; that they went to restaurants and bars; that they did anything they could with the credits they had. 

“Did you…?” One of the Initiates tries to begin to ask, not having the words to articulate the question, meaning Anakin has to attempt to fill in for them. 

“Have a hobby?” The Initiate nods, so he shrugs a little. He wasn’t allowed many things as a slave, but building droids and engines, and pod racing, were always such fun things for him. Little parts of his life he could have for his own enjoyment, even if the pod racing was meant to be for Watto’s benefit. “I enjoy mechanics, piloting, and racing, mostly. My Master still lets me help with engineering tasks, if he can find anything for me to repair, but that’s usually just so I leave him alone long enough for him to meditate.”

“You don’t race?” Another child asks, a little Zabrak boy with markings that curl around his eyes.

“The Order forbids it. You race for money and it is rather unfair for a Force sensitive to enter with those who are not. It is one thing I have been explicitly forbidden from doing.”

But does not tell them of just how much he longs to do it, he craves the speed and just how wonderful the rush is within his body. He knows flying would have alleviated so much of this unknown, dark burden he is shouldering. Yet, glimpses within his mind of crashes and so many hurt people keep him far from the hangar, learning of this new limit through the Force.

Anakin catches sight of Padmé reaching for his sleeve again to pull on it, and he turns his head to face her and gives her his attention before she manages to touch him once more. 

“Have you ever been to Naboo?” Her eyes are large, sparkling, and curious. Her lips slightly pursed. Anakin wonders how a child could be so adorable. How any of the younglings in front of him could be as cute as they are, especially when so many of the Jedi he knows are decidedly _not._ He fleetingly contemplates if the ability to be soft and full of wonder fades as more of the Jedi Code is taught. 

The thought sticks in his mind, causing him to pause before nodding to the young girl. “After I was found but just before I was brought to the temple by Master Qui-Gon, there was an issue with the Trade Federation and Naboo, which had caused harm to the people of the planet. We went to aid Naboo in dismantling the blockade.” 

A look of panic strikes mutedly on Padmé’s face, her gentle voice asking, almost pleading, “Are the people safe?”

Anakin manages a smile and pats her head softly with his left hand. “Qui-Gon, my Master, and the inhabitants of Naboo itself managed to keep the people safe, and have maintained peace there since. I helped a little, too.”

Relief appears to spiral through the girl before she catches herself, releasing the feeling into the Force. 

Another Initiate asks what Anakin did to help, informing them that he was able to pilot himself into a position to take down the command ship of the blockade. The events appear to dawn on the Initiates when, “that really was you?!” is spoken in chorus.

Padmé is then, an action that iss evident on her face, struck with a thought. She’s tentative when she voices her query, other Initiates stepping in closer to hear what she has to say. She evidently has their respect, but does not place herself above them, and nor do they place her upon a pedestal. It is refreshing, to see younglings so close to one another.

“As a Jedi, I hope I can keep all people, all planets, and all systems safe, but I especially wish that for Naboo because it is the planet I was born and kept on before coming to the temple. Is that bad?”

Anakin’s immediate response to the question is that he is not the best person for them to ask, that he has his own issues with such matters. He considers asking for Yoda or Obi-Wan to come in for support, but all these younglings are looking at him as if he has every answer for every question. And it feels _good._ These little beings look up to _him,_ a slave boy turned Jedi Padawan, someone who holds no true power or control in anything, and who never has. He wishes for nothing more than to give them everything they would want to know about anything he can speak on.

He searches his mind for something he could imagine Obi-Wan would say, but finds those words sit too bitterly on his tongue. So, he turns to the Force. He closes his eyes for a moment to find guidance on what he should say. Once something has been found, Anakin’s mouth moves before his brain fully registers what is coming out of it.

“The Jedi cannot favour one people, one species, one planet, one system over the other. But, we also cannot deny where we have come from. Planets of origin may not be your home, but they make up part of who you are, Jedi or not. It is not bad to wish for good to happen somewhere in particular, but it is if you would wish ill upon somewhere else to achieve it.” 

He thinks those words are far too wise to truly be his own thoughts, so he thanks the Force for leading him to that conclusion. Realising that it does, strangely, actually sound like something Obi-Wan would say to him. Not whatever the anger in his head had spewed out. 

He knows that, because it not only settles himself but the Initiates surrounding him. Obi-Wan’s words often do manage to have that result on anyone, from the way it’s spoken, to the words he selects to say.

It is bettered further when he looks towards the Force and discovers that it doesn’t appear to jostle with the notion that he has done wrong. Expelling from Anakin the fear that he has said something that will lead these younglings astray from their paths.

“Did you know, Padawan Skywalker, that I could have been queen of Naboo, if I was not a Jedi?” 

Amused somewhat by the idea that growing to be royalty is shared by both slave children and Jedi younglings, Anakin cannot stop the small smile upon his lips. It merely goes to show how galaxy-wide and inherent some thoughts are. Yet, Padmé speaks with such confidence, that it takes Anakin aback and lessens his smile. 

She does not say it to gloat or flaunt, she speaks it as if it is a fact, one that does not bother her nor endlessly occupy her mind. She does not cling to the idea of her being a queen. In actuality, when Anakin raises an eyebrow at her, she tells him: “But, instead, I will be the Jedi the Order needs me to be.” 

For some reason, the result of a strange certainty within him, he believes her. When he reaches out to her in the Force, he finds only truth. There is no resentment for the loss of a title she never held, but there is determination to be an exceptional Jedi. He wonders how she can remain so steadfast and sure that she will be able to fulfil her role, follow her path through the Force, when he has wholeheartedly struggled with it.

She is younger than him, possibly four standard years Anakin’s junior, and she is so certain where he is not. He worries—frets, momentarily—that he does not have the confidence in himself to be what the Order needs. He knows he can be a strong Jedi, already exceptional in duelling and Force strength, but he does not know how well he can abide by his future duty.

Instead, he smothers the thought, not wishing to stamp out her light with his own dark anxieties. Softly patting her cheek, he agrees with her.

“I am sure you will find a Master who will train you to be that.”

Padmé moves even closer to him, cheeks flooding with a redness beyond a childish, healthy glow. “Would you be my Master?”

“I think you will turn thirteen before I am even considered for the Jedi Trials,” he informs her with a small chuckle, disliking the frown that crests on her forehead and face. “Even if I am not your Master, I am certain you will still become a guardian angel to all those who need it.”

She beams at him, showing him her smile that pushes round cheeks outwards. Happiness shines through the Force, swelling until she blurts out: “Just like you, then!”

He said the right thing, he took that sorrowful countenance from her face.

Laughing lightly, Anakin turns when he feels a presence near the door, and the Crèche Master appears, waving the younglings towards herself, a reminder of their next class.

They all turn to say goodbye to Anakin, who rises to stand from the uncomfortably short chair, with eager smiles and waves. He finds himself returning it, before waiting for a minute on his own to return to where he can sense Yoda and Obi-Wan meditating. He approaches them slowly, giving them time to open their eyes and rise to their feet. 

“Feel better, I sense you do,” Yoda informs him knowingly, and Anakin finds himself agreeing. The anger no longer crushes in his mind, the Nexu has been forced back into its cage where it slumbers soundly, no longer baying to escape and seek blood. 

“How was it?” Obi-Wan’s expression is plain but he does not hide his inquisitiveness from their bond. Anakin feels it prodding at his brain, which has him glaring at his Master for a moment. What is returned is a quick, smiling twitch of Obi-Wan’s lips. He is being teased and that’s when he knows something has shifted inside him, because he simply wants to smile along with his Master. Which he does, recounting being immersed in with the younglings. 

“It was overwhelming… They had so many questions, and then there was one who told me, if she wasn’t to be a Jedi, she would be a queen. But it wasn’t anything untoward, she was so matter of fact, as if it was true. It was strange.”

“Young Padmé, that is,” comes Yoda’s hum. “Right she is, in what she says. Queen she likely would have been, if not for the Force in her.”

“But… She was raised in the temple; how would you know?” Anakin knows the humans in Naboo elect their own queen, it is a tidbit of information he kept from his visit to the Trade Federation’s blockade. It wasn’t a hereditary title, it came as a result of democracy and there were strict periods of rule. How could they know without knowing the future or admitting the planet is corrupt?

That confusion is alleviated by his Master, very swiftly after the question leaves Anakin’s lips, as if he can hear Anakin’s thoughts

“Her parents are figures of status on Naboo. Before she came to the temple, even at such a young age she was already showing traits that her people find desirable in their queen, and her parents felt her to be so intrinsically _good,_ they wished to prime her for that. They wished for her to stand in the election at fourteen.”

“A struggle, it was, to convince them,” Yoda recalls, “that a Jedi, she should be.”

Bewildered, Anakin finds him shaking his head. Not in disagreement, but in shock. “How does _she_ know of all this?”

“Anakin, we do not hide information from the younglings, if they seek it. The library and archives, as well as the Crèche Masters, are all available for them to use.” Obi-Wan turns to look at Anakin, who is trying to bite down on all the questions of _‘why?’_ bouncing around his head. “They are permitted to learn languages, accents, cultures and customs, of their home worlds, should they ever decide to leave the Order, or if they do not pass the Initiate Trials.”

“Huh,” Anakin utters, following the two Masters away from the Crèche.

“Well, perhaps next time, Anakin, this can be our first port-of-call, should you need a distraction.” With a motion to roll his eyes just building up within Anakin, Obi-Was turns. “Do not roll your eyes at me just yet. Perhaps wait until I tell you that we still must meditate on your previous emotions, Padawan.”

Anakin does complete the action then and accompanies it with a grumble, receiving a muted laugh from both of the Masters. All the while thinking of the little girl who asked him, so earnestly, if he would be her Master. His thoughts stray beyond that, thinking of the kind of Padawan he may receive when the Council deem him ready, if he would have someone like Padmé… 

He can only hope so.


	2. loth-cat mother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there's a change within anakin that both pleases and worries obi-wan. anakin and padmé meet again.

The cockpit of any spacecraft feels like home to Anakin. Even in the cold depths of hyperspace, the helm is warm and inviting, somewhere Anakin feels safe and in control. He knows what each flash of light on the dashboard means, he knows what every hum of the engine signifies, and he knows that he can outfly any other being in the galaxy in any ship. The Force flows within Anakin the moment he sits in the piloting seat and begins to flick switches, fingers curling around the steering control to lead to take-off. The Force knows this is home.

Despite his complaints of Anakin’s flying style and tactics, Obi-Wan rarely ever argues to be the one to pilot. Anakin can’t feel it in their bond but he’s aware that there is a trust between the two of them when it comes to this. It’s his skill that has saved them both from certain death a handful of times, despite his Master seeming to think he has a penchant for crashing, and they both have a silent agreement that their safety can be found if Anakin is in the piloting seat. Even in their most heated skirmishes, Anakin finds solace and calm in flying, thinking of nothing but the Force and the expanse of space around him. 

So, Obi-Wan puts up with Anakin’s flying so that he doesn’t have to put up with Anakin’s anger. If Anakin is the one to pilot, he cannot grow frustrated with someone else and pile blame upon them. If Anakin is in control, Anakin has control. They both know that. It’s what Anakin wants. He doesn’t always wish to confront his feelings head on, sometimes he simply craves to lose himself in something he wholeheartedly loves instead.

He takes peace from flying, his Master’s faith in his abilities simply adds to that. His Master does not pour every hour into reminding Anakin that his emotions need to be dealt with like a Jedi, that’s what Anakin adores about having Obi-Wan as his teacher. It feels more constructive to Anakin, to have something to focus on, other than whatever is devouring him from within. Obi-Wan enjoys meditating to engross himself in the force and deconstruct every last detail about the emotions he feels, why he feels them, and how he can let them go. Anakin has to forget to let go, not examine and analyse. 

They’ve both learnt that from each other. Though, Obi-Wan still encourages Anakin to meditate at any available possibility. And, Anakin is not entirely insolent to his Master’s wishes for him. He won’t shy away from the golden warmth of pride that comes from Obi-Wan when he discovers Anakin meditating unprompted. But, he doesn’t seek it out, unless he’s feeling truly worthless within himself. 

So, taking off for their latest mission feels like utter tranquillity when the transport ship begins to rise up from the platform below. Obi-Wan is already meditating when Anakin begins to manoeuvre the shuttle away from Coruscant, and Anakin feels as though he’s doing the same thing. He puts off going into hyperspace to stay in control for a few minutes longer, knowing it’ll take him an extra few minutes to find something else to submerge himself into once the autopilot is engaged.

Once the blue lights of stars blurring past move in steady streams around him, Anakin finds himself tucked into a small corner. The panel boarding has been removed, revealing an intricate web of wiring, which he plucks at and works with until the slide of the doors is that fraction of a second more responsive to his approach. He does it all around the ship, calmly yet swiftly rotating from data pad to control centre to wire panel, concerning himself with the minutiae of the electronics of the cockpit, not once bothering Obi-Wan. Who, of no surprise to Anakin, barely moves to do anything but breathe.

It feels like a sense of home Anakin will never be used to; to spin peacefully around his Master like a moon in the galaxy of the cockpit. The lights twinkle like stars, Obi-Wan rests peacefully as a soft, sighing planet, and Anakin is abuzz with the activity of a satellite populated by a thousand tiny fires. It is the closest thing Anakin has to home without his mother. Piloting, fixing up wiring and engine parts, all in the presence of someone who will selflessly care for him, it’s all that was to love on Tatooine. And it’s all that there’s to love on Coruscant and on any ship Anakin may step on with Obi-Wan.

⁂

An impossible task stretches before him. Anakin smiles, welcoming the odds that likely stack against both him and his Master. Outnumbered and outgunned, but not outmatched. His hands readjust on his lightsaber and he calls out to what resides within him. Beyond Anakin’s own belief, when he stares down the barrel of danger and he is searching for that endless stretch of peace within him, he sees the smile of a child. A mismatch of adult and milk teeth, a face framed by the twists of bound up hair, a flush of pink on cheeks that only deepens as the vision goes on. Then more faces populate what he sees, a huddle of twenty or so children’s faces, all beaming up at him with their grins and lightness of Force. 

It’s a memory that’s a year deep in his mind, something he saw when he was stumbling through the worst bout of darkness he’s ever felt just before his fifteenth life day. It feels so distant and yet so near, familiar and warm. He reaches out to grasp the memory in his fingers.

He finds that sight doesn’t lead him to a swaying tundra of the Force, but a deep well that the Force bubbles and spills from. This endless stream exists within him, it always has, he simply did not know how to seek it out and delve his entire self into it. The key to it, now, is obvious to him.

The sight of the children remains in his mind; their awe, their beauty, is what has him facing a squad of guards at least fifty deep and ten wide with natural ease. He knows where each blaster bolt will go before it is even fired, able to swoop his body out of its way or catch it with his lightsaber as he charges down the centre of the group. It’s a thrill to see two sights in his mind at once, when usually one is all that his mind can see. But, it’s in the belief and admiration so clear in the children’s eyes, that Anakin can see the fight unfurling before him. 

They show him both the light and the way to strike, attack, and defend. The Force sings within him with so much delight, he must be radiating it through the Force to his Master, who Anakin senses tugging on it to draw this flow into him too. 

They share what erupts from Anakin until the children disappear, revealing a lone man in a cell. He is battered and bruised, having been captured by an organised and of pirates, and Anakin cannot particularly remember his name. This is Master Fisto’s mission, he holds all the information and Anakin is following the instructions of extraction that he was given. All Anakin recalls is that he is one of two key figures in the supply chains of a planet outside of the Senate that has been kidnapped, without then the people of their planet are left weakened with few allies to bring aid. They are required for peace and survival on their planet, it is imperative to return them unharmed and in full health.

He moves with such speed, Obi-Wan working around him defensively as he carries the man, that he barely has to look at the route he’s taking. The Force guides him, as she almost always does, until he’s going up the gangplank of the ship they arrived on and setting the man down with a medical droid. Obi-Wan remains there and Anakin sinks into the cockpit, readying the ship to depart the moment Master Fisto appears with his own rescued merchant.

Questions from his Master will come about what he’s been able to manage with the Force, he knows it. But, he enjoys the peace all the more keenly as he flips switches and presses buttons, setting their course for Coruscant. Meditating in his own way.

⁂

Obi-Wan awaits Anakin’s return from the chancellor’s office peacefully, melding into the fabric of the temple’s collective Force presence. Days have passed since their return to the Republic capital, their debrief with the Council complete, and Obi-Wan still keeps recalling how Anakin had acted in combat. When he had remarked to the Council that there had been a difference in how Anakin moved, he had used the words “vast improvement”. When, truthfully, he had wished to utter “palpably impressive” to the Jedi elders, in regard to his Padawan’s shift in prowess, but hadn’t wanted to reveal how shaken he was by the speed of this development. It had been so sudden, as if Anakin had been possessed and overcome by something, and Obi-Wan would not place it 

Instead, Yoda had approached Obi-wan that morning, speaking as cryptically as ever to invite both him and Anakin to aid in the lightsaber training of some Initiates. Obi-Wan understood part of it, the thinly veiled invitation for Anakin to display his newfound, explosive skill. 

So, there he stands, a meditative statue at the entrance of the temple, mutedly searching for the Force signature of Anakin in everyone who passes by. 

The teenager is easy to spot, both blinding and unsettlingly shadowy in the force all at once. Obi-Wan walks to greet him, mentally tugging him along towards the training salles and Anakin comes easily. Lightsaber practice is easily Anakin's favourite element of being a Jedi, at least from what Obi-Wan can decipher from the teen. It’s the one form of repetition that Obi-Wan manages to wrangle his Padawan into with minimal arguing or petulance. But he can sense Anakin bristle as they draw closer to the training room, they can both identify Master Yoda and the younglings surrounding him from long down the corridor. 

The question hangs unspoken from Anakin’s lips and Obi-Wan casts him a glance that keeps him from speaking at all. Instead, they move silently into the room where Yoda is amongst the students to advise them of small improvements they can make in their katas. 

Obi-Wan expects a remark of confusion from Anakin now, the sight before then giving no clue as to why Obi-Wan has brought them both here. He is, however, slightly stunned when all reluctance fades from their bond as his Padawan takes stock of the faces of the Initiate clan before him.

In fact, if Anakin hadn’t smothered it so quickly and so well, Obi-Wan is sure he felt a spark of recognition entwined with excitement light up their bond for a moment. He does not understand why this cluster of Initiates garners that reaction from his Padawan. So, he lets his eyes wander.

Obi-Wan takes a moment to peruse through the faces, attempting to partner names to them, and he struggles to. For the most part. 

There is one Initiate, a girl with her hair sat proudly and delicately upon her head in a way that would only be found upon Naboo. Initiate Padmé Naberrie. Even Master Windu voiced praise about her political prowess and aptitude, remarking that she is the most politically literate Initiate they have raised since Obi-Wan. And that takes him a moment, recalling as much as he can of Anakin’s minimal interactions with younglings until he comes to one specific event in time.

It’s the same class that Anakin was once calmed by, and the tiny glint of a small something in Yoda’s eyes tells Obi-Wan that this interaction has been orchestrated to the most minor of details. Them being invited to this very class is purposefully. It’s an experiment that Anakin is wholly unaware of.

“Ah, Master Kenobi, Padawan Skywalker, glad you joined us, we are.” Yoda beckons them over, drawing them to follow him to the front of the group. “Aid us in practice, these Jedi will.”

Apprehension that is not his own creeps up the back of Obi-Wan’s neck and he sends a pulse of calm Anakin’s way, surprised to find that the Padawan clings to it rather than rejecting it, as he usually would. They come to stand beside Yoda, silent as the Grand Jedi Master divides the Initiates into three distinct groups of seven.

“By fighting style, you are grouped.” Yoda softly grunting between his words. “Favour defence, two of these groups do. Drawn to the offensive, the last is.”

Obi-Wan readies to drift towards one of the more defensive groups, confident he can teach them more of his Form III style, and Anakin hesitates before turning toward the offensive one. But, Yoda raises a hand to stop them.

With a look up at both Obi-Wan and Anakin, Yoda informs them: “Teach our opposites, we will.”

Anakin is placed alongside one of the defensive groups, one that holds an incredibly shy-looking Initiate Naberrie, and Obi-Wan greets the cluster of offensive form favouring younglings. Having taught Anakin, Obi-Wan is certain of his own abilities to hone the skill of those who favour the aggressive manoeuvres and stances of the seven forms. But, he worries for Anakin. He has no experience in teaching, only in learning and practicing. 

“Worry not,” Yoda placates him. “Fine, your Padawan shall be.”

“I do hope so.” 

He knows how Anakin’s temper flares. He has seen his Padawan snap at droid units who work too slowly or who do not follow his commands perfectly. He worries that his Padawan will hold these younglings to a standard they cannot meet; the same standard both Obi-Wan and Anakin hold Anakin to. He cannot help but worry for these young ones, should Anakin’s temper bend to snap and break.

Their focus is to hone the skills of the Initiate’s in a style other than the one they favour to use, improving their ability to read and understand the moves of their opponents. Or, should a moment be dire enough for them to need it, switch back and forth between attacking and deflecting modes. Obi-Wan only just manages that himself, with some success, as does Anakin, when in a fight. Partly drawn from having grown so familiar with each other’s respective Soresu and Djem So movements. He angles his tutoring towards that, hoping they will understand the benefits of defence beyond attacking.

Obi-Wan teaches his Initiates in a similar way to how he taught Anakin, taking them through each movement over and over until their comfort in the movement grows. They often lapse into stances and gestures that are aggressive and pressing, urging themselves into attacks. But, with a gentle hand on their shoulder, Obi-Wan guides them to something more defensive. He doesn’t give outright signs of praise, besides smiles and nods of his head. Purely because he keeps a probing part of his mind on Anakin, worried and concerned for how the teen may be reacting to the situation and the Initiates. But, when he glances over to the teen, he has his entire group enraptured. 

They are paired off, training lightsabers humming softly in their hands and practicing their moves on one another. With the odd number of Initiates, Anakin has placed himself with one of them, a small male Twi’lek with royal blue skin. He grasps the Djem So motions Anakin is showing him with exceptional speeds, likely being one of the students to whom form switching comes naturally. Yet, without even looking, as if feeling it in the Force, Anakin knows when something is wrong. When a youngling in his group struggles, Anakin’s hands cover those of the Initiate he’s helping, physically moving their bodies how they should go, and then encouraging them to retry the move. He’s overflowing with positive words to both those struggling and those sinking into the change in movements a little more easily. 

Strangely enough, the Initiate in Anakin’s group that struggles the most is the one Obi-Wan would least expect to. Even with her shields up, Obi-Wan can sense Initiate Naberrie is piling large amounts of frustration into the Force, trying to stay ahead of her sense of failure. Anakin is keen to ease it, too, placing himself and his Twi’lek partner at her side, where he can talk more softly to her. 

Obi-Wan pauses his own group’s actions when Initiate Naberrie suddenly bursts into a fit of tears, and he spares a look to Yoda, who is also observing the scene. Taking a few steps forward to approach her, Obi-Wan thinks of all the ways he can ease her burdens as a Jedi Initiate, but Yoda stops him with his hand. There’s a nod towards Anakin, indicating that Obi-Wan should wait to see what his Padawan will do. He heeds the silent suggestion, favouring to cast his full attention to what’s before him.

Yoda comes to stand at Obi-Wan’s side, humming just loudly enough for Obi-Wan to hear: “Struggle with her weapon, she does. Strongly in pacifism, she believes.”

Like most other times Anakin does anything, he blindsides Obi-Wan with how he reacts.

The teen’s first action is to crouch to Initiate Naberrie’s level, search her face for her true emotions, then he wraps his arms around her. There’s a ripple of curiosity around the room, both in the Force and the noises the younglings make, but Anakin appears to ignore it. After a moment, the Initiate hugs him back, crying in earnest. 

Obi-Wan can hear the soft lulls of Anakin’s voice when he asks her, “Would you like to talk about it?”

For someone with so many strong emotions, Anakin most often shies away from registering them in any which way. So much so that he deflects from the subject of them whenever Obi-Wan approaches him with hopes of discussion. Seeing him reach out to comfort someone else, eases something in Obi-Wan’s mind, understanding that perhaps it is not emotions in general that bother Anakin from within, but Anakin’s own relationship with them. He takes note of that but does not linger on the thought. The Initiate is speaking, something that’s so interrupted with hiccups and choked gasps that Obi-Wan does not understand it.

But, Anakin hears every word and pulls back to offer the small girl a smile. 

“You already know the Jedi do not leave the temple to actively cause harm, so me repeating that to you won’t help.” Anakin thumbs across her cheek, catching her tears and tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ears. Whilst the Jedi centre themselves and their actions around compassion, physical tenderness is barely ever practiced, and most often, shunned. But, it works in calming the girl, her eyelashes still webbed with tears surrounding wide eyes that look up to Obi-Wan’s Padawan in growing peaceful awe. “And yes, you are right, not everything can be solved with a lightsaber – and that belief is certainly both the Jedi way and my Master’s. I have followed behind him, watching him lead negotiations and seek peaceful routes, but I have been prepared to draw my weapon to defend him, to defend innocent people, and to defend myself. I have learnt that, even with the most skilled and diplomatic Jedi present – like my Master – fighting is often unavoidable to bring peace. Especially in the face of a violent oppressor.

“Attacking can often be a very effective form of defence; a Loth-cat mother will strike out with claws and teeth before you can even touch one of her kittens. She defends them by attacking what may cause them harm, since her peaceful attempts of keeping them hidden away and together failed. She wills to live with them undisturbed, she tries her best for that, but sometimes she must assert herself to take peace for all of them. It is the same for anything that something predatory preys upon: a Loth-cat, a Krayt Dragon, _a slave child.”_

Age etches itself in and around Anakin’s eyes, reminding Obi-Wan of someone far older than Anakin could be, and he wonders if these are the words of his mother. It would not be unfathomable for that to be the case. Anakin is comforting this girl with touch and an allegory of protection, something likely learnt from a slave mother to soothe a small, downtrodden child.

“Now, why don’t my Master and I show you how you can attack to protect, with me defending you here from him?”

Padmé peers over towards Obi-Wan, who bows his head slightly to acknowledge her, and she agrees hesitantly. Her reluctance to see violence both pleasingly and worryingly on her face. Then, Anakin stands to his full height, vastly taller than everyone else in the room, including Obi-Wan, and he searches for his Master’s agreement. 

Obi-Wan raises his eyebrows, but brings his own lightsaber to his hand, flicking it on with his thumb. Yoda shuffles off, holding his staff with both hands, all of the other Initiates huddled up behind him. Anakin stands metres ahead of Obi-Wan, lightsaber drawn and body crouched into his fighting stance, readying himself. He’s awaiting Obi-Wan’s signal that he’s ready before beginning, then, when Obi-Wan nods, Anakin begins.

He is used to fighting with his Padawan, knowing of the motions of his body and the way the Force shifts around his every action. Anakin has always been powerful, both his height and physical strength an evident advantage, but he has long since learned how to exert the Force directly in his movements. If it were a battle of might alone, Anakin would easily best Obi-Wan. And it’s been that way for many months now.

But, Obi-Wan has skill and technique that only comes with experience, something that has come to Obi-Wan in abundance since he faced Darth Maul’s Juyo. And, with Anakin’s form so familiar, it often feels like a pure give and take to battle with him, like a hand that can slip so perfectly into a glove.

They have not battled one another since returning from the mission where Anakin’s aptitude exploded from within him, and now, Obi-Wan finds himself tugging on the Force far more than usual to be able to fend off Anakin’s counter-strikes. Their lightsabers meet continually, the familiar crackle and buzz of their collisions echoing off the walls of the salle, with Anakin’s _attack-defend-counterattack_ structure surrounding every tactic of defence Obi-Wan can conjure up. Anakin has come so far, developed so quickly, with no sign of the handicap his late start in training should give him. 

Obi-Wan cannot even bring himself to discern where Anakin would be if he was raised in the temple. It settles a sense of awe into Obi-Wan whenever he even faintly considers the possibilities, and so he pushes back harder. 

He moves with more fervour, attempting to gain ground towards the Initiate Anakin is ‘protecting’, but the Padawan’s moves are almost impenetrable. They do not seek to harm one another in their sparring, however, that does not stop Obi-Wan from faltering. A kick of Anakin’s leg has him sliding down to the floor, feeling the heat of Anakin’s blade from where it’s held a few centimetres from his neck. 

In a moment of combat, Obi-Wan would use the Force to defend himself from death in an instance such as this. Or, as much as they tease and squabble over it, he would rely upon Anakin to come to help him and wrangle them out of the situation. But, for the purpose of training, Obi-Wan can identify plainly that now is the time that he should withdraw and admit defeat. 

He retracts his lightsaber and Anakin does the same, almost entirely synchronised, signifying the end and a clear win for Anakin.

“In this display, such skill, we have seen,” Yoda comments, indicating to both Obi-Wan and his Padawan, Anakin holding out a hand to haul Obi-Wan up. 

The Initiates look at both of them, utterly enthralled by what they’ve seen, and Obi-Wan wonders why they moved so far away from where he and Anakin had fought.

Rapidly, Obi-Wan is awash with the realisation that, in their duel, Anakin managed to push him far back from Initiate Naberrie, successfully drawing the battle away from her whilst staying within range to return to her, should she need more defence. He allows a gentle imprint of how impressive he finds Anakin’s actions to flow through their bond. Anakin preens infinitely more under that than Yoda’s vocalised praise, and Obi-Wan pretends that he does not notice. But, even he cannot help the satisfaction that comes with knowing he’s made Anakin feel even a modicum of happiness. 

The moment is broken, or perhaps enhanced, when Initiate Naberrie approaches Anakin, grabbing his hand with hers, drawing his attention to her. Her cheeks are flushed so pink it’s almost floral, reminding Obi-Wan of all the children he’s seen be enamoured by their greatest hero. The Padawan and Initiate stare at each other quietly, her assessing him and him allowing her to. She goes infinitely redder, suddenly releasing his hand to say: “You are a Loth-cat mother?” 

It’s a seemingly nonsensical question both within the context and outside of it, but a moment of understanding flashes between both of them that even Obi-Wan can see.

Anakin grins again, suddenly looking just as boyish as he should at his age, “Yes, I am a Loth-cat mother. And I know you can be, too.”

Yoda uses the opportunity to teach the Initiates something more, about having confidence in their ability to attack in the name of defence and how the Jedi only wield violence in search of peace. Then, they fade back into their groups, this time with Anakin facing Initiate Naberrie directly, advising her on how to better herself in attack. She is still shaky and unsure in her strikes when the class comes to a close, but she holds no frustration in them. She is not close to tears nor is she conflicted. Which, Obi-Wan thinks is an incredible improvement to make within a two-hour period. And, he can hear his Padawan informing the girl of exactly that, and she almost glows when Anakin ruffles her hair, smiling whilst he says, “You’ve done brilliantly, little guardian angel.”

When the younglings file out in the direction of the ‘freshers before they head to their next class, Obi-Wan lingers back to draw close to Anakin’s side. 

“I thought you grew frustrated teaching initiates?” Obi-Wan teases with a lilt to his voice that Anakin huffs at.

Pretending to fiddle with something on the hilt of his lightsaber, Anakin openly plays ignorant to what Obi-Wan is insinuating. “What do you mean, Master?” 

“When Yoda first took you to the Initiates wing, that’s what you said,” Obi-Wan reminds him, never missing the opportunity to show his Padawan that often a Jedi elder can be right and Anakin wrong. “But, evidence suggests that both instances have proven you incorrect.”

Anakin shrugs in a way Obi-Wan would expect a petulant teenager to, fittingly for someone of Anakin’s age. Normal. “These ones learn faster.” 

“Or, perhaps you are growing more patient?” Regarding his Padawan with a little more softness, Obi-Wan praises Anakin in the gentle suggestion. And he is mutedly delighted by the way Anakin tries to bite back a smile 

“Perhaps, Master.”

“Master Obi-Wan, with you, I must talk,” comes the older voice of the Grand Master Jedi, speaking up to interrupt them. Anakin curiously observes Master Yoda before bowing slightly and moving away, likely to head back to his quarters to wash, eat and rest. 

Obi-Wan’s muscles ache to follow after him, wanting nothing more than warm water to soothe his bones, but he stays with Yoda until the hallway empties. Only then, when the only Force presences in the immediate vicinity are their own, does Yoda verbalise whatever worries his mind. 

“Obvious, the change in young Skywalker is.”

One of Obi-Wan’s hands draws up to his chin, rubbing the hairs there softly before he shrugs, “I am still torn over whether it is a good thing.”

“Worry, you do, that your teachings will not be enough.” It’s a concern that Obi-Wan does not wish to grasp at, but he knows he must. Admitting his failures is something he should always do. So, he nods to confess it to Yoda. There is no point in holding back the thought, Anakin is volatile and much better suited to someone with more skill and more experience in Padawan guidance. “Fear, you should not. The way of the Force, this is.”

“He is only going to get better…”

“Then, improve with him, you shall,” Yoda affirms to Obi-Wan, resolute in the manner in which he speaks. “Teach each other, Master and Padawan should. The Jedi way, it is.”

With those strange words of support, serenity eases its way deeper into Obi-Wan’s mind. He has been meditating on the skill of his Padawan, only for the results to be obscured and unclear. But, like plants that filter the murkiest of water, Yoda’s words give him a little more clarity.

“I understand, Master Yoda,” Obi-Wan manages to utter, liking how much more confident he manages to sound. 

“Still, inform the Council, I must. Goes beyond what I thought, this does, and meditate upon this, we all should.” Unable to agree more, Obi-Wan allows silence to fall between them, the only sounds remaining are those of their feet on the stone flooring. 

With Anakin at his side so much of the time, walking in silence with someone else has become such a rare occurrence, and Obi-Wan relishes in it. As much as he does not mind Anakin’s continual chattering or noisiness in their bond when he is stood so close, sometimes Obi-Wan longs for a little stillness in his surroundings. It shows him that not everything has to test his patience with the Force, not even his chatterbox of a Padawan doing something as simple as walking beside him.

Coming to a corner where they are sure to split, Yoda motions to talk again. But, no advice comes. Instead, there is an offhand comment, spoken in such a quiet voice. “A good master, Skywalker may one day become. A shame, it is, but the will of the Force, it must be.”

Obi-Wan looks at Yoda quizzically in return, unable to decipher if Yoda means that Anakin should not become the Master of a Padawan. Or, if it’s something else. “What is?”

When Yoda smiles, Obi-Wan knows it’s the ‘something else.’

“Too old to be young Skywalker’s Padawan, little Padmé is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> And, if you're attending protests, like i am, make sure you stay safe, wear masks, safeguard those less privileged or able than yourself, and don't give up - it's for one of the best causes imaginable. Black lives deserve much more than to just matter, Black lives deserve to flourish. Especially Black trans lives.


	3. our pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> post-geonosis confusion for obi-wan where he learns something about how to help anakin with his emotions; anakin is knighted; padmé grieves and she's partnered with anakin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's so much character development in this one chapter, so i'm sorry if it's a little overwhelming! i hope you enjoy this, though!

The shift from queen to senator suits Sabé Andierre well. She still looks regal, blinking in slow feline movements and reaching for things with strong, delicate hands. Anakin thinks she’s fascinating, both someone who has been a background presence in his life since meeting her when he was first found by Qui-Gon, and as one of the few politicians he can bear. She greets him and Obi-Wan warmly, not even minding that their arrival disrupts a meeting she’s having with her aides, advisors, and closest senatorial allies. 

She’s smiling as she retells the events of their help during the Trade Federation’s blockade of Naboo, capturing the rapt attention of the delegates that surround her. Even Anakin and Obi-Wan, both sharing little patience for politicians and their games, find it difficult to not be pulled into the warm aura she builds in the office. She talks of Anakin, of how she has kept tabs on his progress and even makes a joke of how she comms him, but he never responds, like she would almost expect a younger brother to. But, she that always manages to get him back, sometimes attending lunches the Chancellor has with Anakin. 

There’s the tell-tale sign in the Force that Obi-Wan is keeping quiet, despite the evident lecture brewing within him, one that will chastise Anakin for ignoring the calls of a Republic senator. But, Obi-Wan is infinitely more astute in these situations than Anakin, and if Anakin can spot something in the politics of a room, his Master had three minutes before. They are aware of what she’s doing, that she’s gently dispelling the mistrust and hesitancy towards the Jedi that many in the Republic’s senate hold.

Still, it does not take long for the number of beings in the office to dwindle and thin, until it’s only Sabé, two of her handmaidens and the Jedi pair remaining. Anakin notes, though, how Sabé bids everyone farewell by their names, from high-ranking officials to their servants, embodying a respect for anyone of any status. It’s not particularly difficult to imagine, given how some of the staff appear to glow at merely being acknowledged by such a renowned senator, that this is not a regular occurrence from within the senate. That this is something rather unique to Senator Andierre.

But, now, with Sabé alone with only the handmaidens and the two Jedi, her expression grows even more truthful, so serious and mutedly fearful. The attempts on her life have shaken both the senate and the Jedi Council, evidence of that inherent in Anakin and his Master’s presence in her office. Senators make many enemies, both in politics and in the way they’re broadcast to people, but Anakin cannot imagine someone truly wanting to harm Sabé. Even with those she is not close with, she is gentle and empathetic, just even more so with the likes of Anakin and her handmaidens, who she shows a sisterly affection to.

She only ever hardens, like she currently is, when she is directly threatened. She is not a feeble person, she holds herself with a strength that one could mistake for that of a Jedi, and for her to harbour this degree of concern irks Anakin. Obi-Wan glances at him, likely sensing Anakin’s worry, and Anakin does his best in letting it go, rather than allowing it to overwhelm him. It takes a closing of his eyes and a set of well-practiced breathing motions before he is no longer pulsing with emotion.

“One of my handmaidens, Saché, was gravely injured in the last attack upon me.” The revealing of this etches something identical on the faces of both the senator and the two beside her. “I took up the Jedi Council’s offer of protection for the purpose of keeping myself and my staff safe. I do not wish for someone else to be hurt like Saché, not if it can be helped, especially not when it’s intended for me.”

Anakin and Obi-Wan knew of their mission before arriving but seeing that degree of anxiety upon Sabé’s face drives another ache through Anakin’s chest. Often one to reject the help of the Jedi, it only goes to show how deep-seated her concern for this runs, that her staff being hurt is where the line is drawn for her. Anakin thinks he understands. He would never accept protection for himself but would do everything imaginable to provide it for those he cares for, even at the threat of his own life.

“Anakin and I, along with the rest of the Jedi, send our wishes for Saché’s full recovery,” 

Obi-Wan’s tone is not his usual measured flirtation that Anakin has grown so used to. Instead, it’s threaded with sincerity, as is his Master’s expression. His entire countenance relays the image of true compassion, and Anakin wonders if it spurs memories of Obi-Wan losing Qui-Gon in the way he did. Anakin himself is harrowed out by the remainders of his own childhood memories, a cluster of them patching themselves together, of all the times his mother took a punishment in his stead. He remembers the helplessness in longing for some heroic figure to rescue them from that moment, and the sense of betrayal that no one came to save his mother. Obi-Wan is only open in his emotion for barely a second, before it flitters away, and Anakin grinds his teeth at how easy it is for his Master to be so detached. It should not be that easy to let go the memories of the pain suffered by one held dearly. Sometimes things should cling and not be let go of.

“We will find out who is doing this to you, Sa— _Senator Andierre._ It will be our priority.”

Obi-Wan sighs at Anakin’s misstep, exasperated in the way Obi-Wan has grown to be in the years gone by. And, if the conversation wasn’t so grave, Anakin would roll his eyes at the sound. “We are not here to conduct an investigation. We’re guarding Senator Andierre, that is our main concern.”

“How can we protect her if we do not know what the threat is and who it is coming from?” Anakin looks to his Master, brows furrowed in confusion and disbelief. “Investigation is inherent in our mandate.”

“Anakin, our mandate is to protect.”

He doesn’t wish to argue with his Master, but Anakin knows he’s right, deep within the Force, he knows they must investigate. And Anakin trusts the Force that little bit more than he does the Jedi Council. “Master, we _must_ look into this threat against Senator Andierre.”

 _“Anakin,”_ his Master warns in that way he always does whenever the Padawan is pushing the boundaries a little too much. The irritation coming from his Master intensifies before it disappears, likely registered and then shoved into the Force with the natural ease of a Jedi raised in the temple. But, Anakin had felt it, he knew it was there.

They are both stubborn, but something in the Force tells Anakin there is more to this. He doesn’t want to defer to his Master on this occasion, as he has done many times. 

“If Padawan Skywalker’s assumption is true,” Sabé says, drawing even closer to the Jedi and breaking Anakin’s attention from Obi-Wan. “I would not object to an investigation, if only to see justice.”

That only lasts for a moment before Anakin is grinning at his Master triumphantly. Even in all of Anakin’s political ineptitude, he certainly knows that her saying that is her outright permission to investigate. Obi-Wan looks between Anakin and Sabé blankly before another sigh escapes from him. Anakin’s smile grows wider when he sees his Master’s left hand rise up to rub against his bearded chin, knowing he is going to be told he is right in a roundabout way.

“If something happens, we can look into it.” It’s the closest thing Anakin will get to his Master conceding to one of his not yet formulated plans, so he takes it with a nod of his head. Fighting down how easily his Master often dismisses him that _this_ feels as close as they come to agreeing. “But, it is our job to ensure nothing happens, first and foremost.”

“Certainly, Master,” Anakin agrees, pacified somewhat but earnest in wishing to keep Sabé from harm.

⁂

Anakin does not remember much of Naboo other than stone buildings, and endless swathes of natural green and blue that he had never seen before, so it still startles him to see it so bountiful and lush. Whilst he sits in awe, Sabé oozes the sensation of reverence. She champions this planet, adoring it from its core to its outer atmosphere. It would be infectious, if Anakin’s shields were not held so tightly.

Sabé turns to one of her handmaidens, all of them dressed identically, making it difficult to identify any of them accurately without searching for their force signatures. It feels like a trick to the mind with their outward appearances so muddling and it baffles Anakin. 

He looks at them, eyes moving from where he holds the controls of the Nabooian Cruiser and still is mystified by the fact that they could all be mistaken for one person; exquisite in the same ways as one another. 

And it suddenly strikes him, glancing from Sabé to who he thinks is Dormé, the image of the last time he saw Padmé. They have such similar features. Their eyes, their hair, their skin, their lips. All so well-matched on their own faces and between each other. It makes him curious, wondering if this is what all women from Naboo look like, if the planet is overflowing with beauty to match theirs. It wouldn’t be logical, but Anakin barely remembers the faces that have smudged together in his memories from a standard decade prior, he only has these women and Padmé to draw conclusions from.

He tries his very best to shake thoughts of Padmé from his mind, those only make him wonder how Padmé is doing. If she is struggling or not, being a Padawan. If her Master is keeping her safe, keeping her away from the conspiracy that seems to be curling around Coruscant and its politics. Immersing himself in a form of his piloting meditation only worsens what flashes in his mind, as if the Force wants him to see it.

First, it’s Padmé a year after she had become apprenticed to Nicanas Tassu, just when they happened to cross paths just as Anakin and his Master were returning from a mission. Anakin was so often off-world with Obi-Wan, that the temple felt more and more foreign to him upon each return. But, he stepped off the transport ship, and there she was. Her cream and brown robes, her head tilted quizzically with intense interest as her Master explained something to her, and her concentration being broken by the fact Anakin was simply there. She had looked at him and smiled, cheeks flushing with pink and hands suddenly fiddling to neaten her hair. 

The next the Force shows is when she’d rushed to his side when she was eleven and tentatively asked him for his help in the dining halls. She held a bundle of data pads in her hands, eyes wide with anxiety, and pleaded with him to help her with her Initiate work. He’d made space for her next to him at this table, taking one of the pads from her hands and grinned when he saw the familiar engineering modules he’d been given permission to skip, but had taken upon arrival at the temple anyway. They were there for three standard hours, with Anakin unpicking the work to teach it anew for her. The memory of understanding suddenly lighting up her entire face has become one of his favourites, reminding himself of the lightness held so tightly within Initiates. 

And it helps him on the nights when the sensation of feeling used settles deep within him, acting as a keepsake of his sanity within the temple. She had wanted to be near him because not because he was considered by many to be the _Chosen One._ She asked him because he could support her as Anakin Skywalker, not someone or something else. As himself.

Then, it was the strangely proud and disheartening time that he had seen her just after she had passed her Initiate Trials. It bothered him a little that he was only able to congratulate her on passing her Initiate Trials so fleetingly, wanting to express his pride but not being able to. He had still grinned at her as he complimented the wonderful pairing she made with her Master, which she bashfully returned. But it was so quick, he still worries that she would have thought it disingenuous. He’d wanted to stay, to crouch to her level and place his hands on her shoulders and tell her the things he’d always wished to hear after any success as a Jedi. But, Obi-Wan was pushing him towards the ship they were taking, heading away from the temple once again.

More memories flow in Anakin’s mind but he manages to trap them, concentrating on being present to guard the senator and get her to the ground safely.

⁂

Obi-Wan hadn’t wanted to leave Anakin to guard Senator Andierre on his own, but Anakin had been undoubtedly correct in his assessment of the situation. If Anakin hadn’t been insistent and hadn’t, somehow, got the senator to agree with him, Obi-Wan wouldn’t have uncovered half the information that he had. Each and every thing he discovered was steeped in and dripping with the dark side, all horrific to sense and be around. There was so much more brewing beneath the surface, providing them a meagre snapshot of an unfurling web of Separatist conspiracy. A clone army in the Jedi’s name on Kamino and a droid army on Geonosis, both signifying something darker, an indirect urging for galactic war. All at the hands of Fallen Jedi Sith Lord, one that taunted and maimed.

Yet, brushing against the shadowy trails a Sith leaves is nothing compared to the void he feels, seeing his Padawan’s face contorted in such raw pain. Obi-Wan senses it within himself, experiences it; almost as if it’s his own pain. Anakin is so deeply hurt that he cannot help but unleash it into every Force sensitive around them. No matter how strong shields are, Anakin blasts through them like a plasma bolt, unintentionally demanding that his pain is felt by all. 

Obi-Wan wishes it had been nothing more than a simple guarding mission. The Jedi are already wounded by those two-hundred and twelve lives returning to the Force. And Anakin’s pain of losing half his arm to a lightsaber, after all that fighting, all of that visceral _loss,_ cuts so deeply within Obi-Wan. His Padawan, his student, is hurt and Obi-Wan can only struggle for words. He does not know how to soothe the young man from this, he has never been able to truly help Anakin with his emotions.

Anakin is constantly wrought with and bound up in things Obi-Wan cannot discern and decipher. They live in a mutual state of understanding, that there will be things about the other that they will never truly know or understand, and it had worked. But Anakin _needs_ him now, needs Obi-Wan to do something, but he has no plan to reach for. Anakin’s truly in the clutches of pain and Obi-Wan knows of no salve that can relieve his hurt. 

If they were closer, more like-minded on more things, akin to how many other Masters are with their Padawans, Obi-Wan wonders what he would feel. He considers if he would experience the agony all those fathers on far-flung planets feel when their worlds are occupied and terrorised, and their children are in danger or have been in the clutches of it already. Anakin — his Padawan _—_ has been submerged in this suffering because they were both too powerless to do anything against Dooku. And Obi-Wan does not feel the ache of someone who raised this boy for ten years, attachment rules or not, and it tears the head of something truly ugly within him. He should be more for Anakin. It’s a failure of a Master to not know and recognise every inch of their Padawan’s pain, and everything that explodes from Anakin is foreign yet familiar.

Obi-Wan felt something similar within himself when his own Master died upon his lap and in his arms, but Anakin’s is so intense, coming straight from his heart, that Obi-Wan feels intrusive for even sharing a bond with Anakin. He wishes he could be more. So much more. He wants to be what Anakin reaches for and needs in these moments. 

Still, he is not. And, it stings like failure. It commandeers every part of him, clenching in the back of his mind and in his eyes. All he can bring himself to do is remind himself that Anakin is still there. Anakin isn’t one of those whose presence has ebbed back into the Force. Anakin is still there. Right in front of him. And there is a chance for him to partake in the healing of Anakin’s wounds, a feeling stirred up by something different to the often-quoted Jedi connection with compassion. He can fix whatever it is that disconnects them because Anakin is still alive.

But even just feeling a shift within himself, does not do anything to heal the wounds inside of Anakin. This healing is superficial, all bacta patches and a cybernetic limb. He does not dare utter it aloud, but he looks upon Anakin’s body, with his missing forearm and a grimace screwing up his face, and thinks: _“I wish I could take your pain away.”_

⁂

Senator Andierre appears at the temple a couple of days after their return, bearing her Astromech, alcohol and sweets - along with an ornate display of flowers - looking for Anakin. Obi-Wan goes to collect her, knowing Anakin is still struggling with the loss of his arm and the anger that wells and pools within him, hoping to warn her before she arrives. Only, she seems all the more prepared for Anakin when he stumbles towards her, eyes already sodden and hands reaching for comfort. Obi-Wan holds back the biting thought that asks why Anakin did not do this with him, because he knows it. It’s in how differently Obi-Wan would react and how the senator does react.

Obi-Wan would freeze, retract, and push forward the idea of meditation; of going to the training salles; of fixing a defective droid or element of a ship; of seeking out younglings to teach. He wouldn’t listen, placate, and support. He would push Anakin further away from him, to force him to deal with what plagues him on his own. He wouldn’t dare do what Senator Andierre does.

She drops the small box of treats she’s brought, a Nabooian wine tumbling onto the floor, and immediately clutches the Padawan to her. It’s a maternal gesture, supporting the head that rests just above her breast, and holding him steady with the other arm. Obi-Wan can only stand by the side whilst his Padawan of ten-years is healed by a woman who is still a relative stranger to them both. 

“It’s okay, Anakin,” she soothes, stroking the hair behind Anakin’s ear. “You can cry, don’t keep it all inside.”

Those are not the words of the Jedi, delivered in the least acceptable manner the Council, Code, and the entirety of the temple outside of this room, would accept. But, it works. Anakin begins to let the sand of his anger slip through his fingers, offering it to the plentiful shores of the Force. The more he shudders and gulps for breath, the more the angst fizzles and fades. Obi-Wan stares, gaping at how suddenly Anakin trusts her to weep upon her lap on the floor. Obi-Wan cannot place, in any way, _why_ Anakin feels relief at her being there. She draws Anakin’s emotions to the surface and manages to calm them all at once, as if her being present is healing enough.

The senator looks at the Padawan fondly, patting his cheek when the breathless sobs fade to quiet gasps, 

“I told you, I will never judge you,” her eyes stare into Anakin’s, reassuring him on levels unknown to Obi-Wan, then she pans the room to find him. 

She beckons him over, gesturing for him to join them on the floor, where he can be a comfort to Anakin, much like she is. He does not quite know what to do, unaware of how to handle himself in the language of physical affection towards his Padawan. He hovers. Just being present.

The senator looks at him expectantly, waiting for him to do something, but he remains blank upon the surface. 

_Say something,_ she mouths. He thinks it truly horrific when the only thing that rings loudly in his mind is the question: _Why were you both on Tatooine and what happened there?_ It urges to be spoken from his throat, to interrogate them on what happened.

But that isn’t what this moment is for. 

He knows that. 

And it is not a question that truly needs to be aired. 

Obi-Wan is not a stupid man. No matter how high the esteem Anakin holds Sabé Andierre in, he would not go there for her. There is only one thing, _one person,_ Anakin would ever return to Tatooine for. And, it cannot be a coincidence that one of the pillars of Anakin’s lightness has begun to crumble to such a degree that Obi-Wan can feel it in their muted bond. Something has to have happened to Anakin’s mother. Something utterly horrific and awful. 

And whilst he should advise his Padawan to let go, he can see that Anakin will not respond to that. His hand shakes as he moves, unsure and fearful of the gesture, but he thumbs across Anakin’s cheek. He pretends not to feel the flinch, the surge of disbelief in their bond, then the ferocity in which Anakin clings to the essence of the gesture. 

Obi-Wan’s vision clouds, finally feeling the shallow ends of the depths in which Anakin’s sense of deficiency wells from. This boy, so often branded arrogant, is overrun with insecurities that Obi-Wan only now feels. The sensation in their bond feels like running hands over a scarred back and torso, inundated with scar tissue and wounds not given the chance to properly mend before the skin closes over. Their bond is beaten and worn, a minuscule thread that links them, and Obi-Wan knows he has not been the Master he could have been. The Master he should have been. 

He searches for the words within himself, hoping that the words that he has been speaking to himself since Geonosis will be the first drop of bacta to heal what is wounded between them. 

“Your losses and misgivings are not failures, Anakin.”

The Padawan seizes up again, just for a moment, casting a stricken look over his shoulder to Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan does the only thing he can think to do. That he thinks he should do. He opens his arms and Anakin almost leaps into them, tears returning anew. But they are not so thoroughly laced with sorrow and guilt, they sing with relief and the dampening of a longing. 

This is all Anakin has ever wanted from him; a string of encouraging words and arms wrapped around his body. It’s so simple, but something Obi-Wan never thought to give. 

He has never felt his Padawan so in pain, yet so at peace. It gives Obi-Wan nothing but hope.

⁂

The Council always remains so uncomfortably blank to those who stand before them. Emotion is absent from both their expressions and the Force, their chamber being the only place in the temple that isn’t abuzz with life and an abundance of peace that’s a living, breathing entity. It’s empty, voided, almost cold, to the point where Anakin’s skin dapples with gooseflesh beneath his robes. 

But, born from a desert planet of slavers, Anakin can read everything he wishes to know about a person in their eyes. These Masters, with their presences perfectly smooth in the Force, are no different. He sees sparks of interest in some, apprehension in others, and the unfamiliar hum of _caring_ in only one. And the latter one glows as Yoda speaks, announcing that Anakin has — in his own unorthodox way — passed the Jedi Trials, to be the youngest Jedi Knight in living memory. That’s where the curiosity derives from in the other Masters, many of them likely contemplating that Anakin may be who Qui-Gon declared him to be. The _Chosen One._ He doesn’t need the Force to sense that. No one does. The hesitation and the intrigue over how this somewhat abrasive and reckless fledgling can bring balance to their world is distinct. Even within Anakin himself. 

He shuns those thoughts, opting to focus on what Obi-Wan allows to flow between them, the faintly golden glow of his pride and reassurance seeping into Anakin’s mind. Whilst it surprises him to feel it — so used to only experiencing it on the rare occasions where he meditates without being forced — it also grounds him to now implode with delight when he is bestowed the title of Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker. 

⁂

The temple is recovering from its state of quiet and solemn reflection in the wake of Geonosis and its aftermath, a deep wound the Force allays and heals with caressing touches. But, Padmé still feels as though a part of her has been torn out. She’s no longer latched to the side of a Jedi Knight and she no longer has another mind that’s only a thought away, always in reach.

Loneliness is not a feeling that Padmé has ever grown familiar with. From her earliest memories, she has always been surrounded by other younglings or Crèche Masters, all at one and connected via the Force. Even once she passed the Initiate Trials, she was always at her Master’s side, she always felt the presence of him in her head. But, now, that pressure of their bond was unbound and disappeared into an aether of something unknown. For the first time, Padmé is alone.

In the rush of the war, the assignment of Padawan’s whose Masters have been lost has slipped down the priority lists of the Council. It’s only temporary and Padmé knows this is for the greater good. She can see that. But, her inner peace is out of kilter. She’s so unbalanced in a way she’s never experienced before, and it’s the dark moment that a Master is supposed to be there for. She’s meant to be able to follow a light out of the shadows, taking their hand, and learning from them how to keep the darkness at bay. 

She always had someone to guide her way before. A Crèche Master, her Master, Master Yoda, and even Padawan Skywalker — they have all been there for her when she has reached out to someone. But, she’s been left alone, handling emotions she’s never come to know even existed. 

She stays in her rooms, mostly, meditating in hopes it’ll fill the void within her, or empty it. She doesn’t even know if she feels empty with the loss or full with the grief. There’s no way for her to know, this is never something that she has seen or experienced within the temple before. It leaves her stranded and useless as she haunts the communal spaces she shared with her Master.

She only ventures out for food and to seek out knowledge of these feelings in the library, avoiding anyone who may notice that something clings to her.

Nothing brings her comfort, though, and she cannot perceive why. She knows that an early or unexpected death is a possibility eventuality for all, especially a Jedi, and it is not the loss of her Master that leaves her so hollow. Her life has been overwhelmed with light and goodness, she knows it exists in the universe, and she knows that she can feel it. So, she knows it is not that which leaves her so desolate within her own mind. 

She tightens her shields around herself, making her presence as small as the tiniest insect or undetectable, whenever she drifts back from another fruitless trip to the archives. She wishes to feel like a ghost, unseen and untouched by all who may pass her, sheltering those around her from what’s within her. It leaves her vulnerable, though, being so focused on keeping others out, that she often forgets that she should be probing to sense those who come too near.

That’s how she’s caught on the shoulder by a hand, as if grabbed by someone who didn’t realise she was there until they were halfway past.

A voice calls to her. Familiar, yet deeper than when she last heard it. It’s soft, so welcoming, so _worried._ “Padmé?”

She looks up, startling at the sight of blue eyes shining directly into her, and she flushes with embarrassment. Anakin Skywalker, still in his battle armour with dirt smudged up his cheek, stands over her with his hand outstretched towards her. Padmé accepts it, feeling the strength in his gloved hand and the ease in which it pulls her from the floor. 

He’s so much taller than what imprinted in her mind, as if he had yet another growth spurt since she saw him last, where he was yelling his congratulations to her down a hallway as he raced towards the hangar after his then-Master. He towers over her but does not cast a shadow. She doesn’t think it possible with how his eyes seem to glow in the temple’s dim lighting, shining like twin cool-toned suns upon her.

She bows her head reverently, in greeting, “Knight Skywalker.”

She doesn’t know what she expects him to do, but just that he will do something; that he will, at least, continue on down the hallway to do whatever it is he’s there for. But, in a way she should expect, he does nothing that would even run through her mind. He places his hands on her shoulders and bends his knees, tilting his head until he can look into her eyes. 

“Are you okay?” Is the question he asks and Padmé opens her mouth to answer.

No words come. Only the strangled noise of a gasp erupts from her. It’s as if the verbal probing holds her in a chokehold, disrupting the path of the lie that wants to come out to placate Skywalker, and unleashing the truth in the form of her tears.

She doesn't know what it is about Skywalker that leaves her so defenceless against halting the urge to cry. The first time had been in a fit of frustration, both not being able to understand why someone would want to attack another living being with a lightsaber and her inability to bring herself to wield the weapon properly. This time is worse. This time it’s something that mangles her thoughts and leaves her with thoughts of being smothered and drowned by emptiness.

He does as he did previously, bringing her into an embrace and humming tranquilly in beside her ear. And she responds in just the same, too, adhering herself to him and bunching up the fabric of his robes in her hands. But, this time, it is not an outlet for frustration. She clings to him so that she is not alone again, burrowing into his hold until she feels small enough to be consumed by him. His armour digs into her cheeks but she cannot bring herself to care at all, it’s all she wants to be able to _feel_ someone else so near.

“Oh, little Padmé, I’m here now,” he murmurs, breath tickling where her hair has fallen unkempt in her recent disregard of her own appearance. “I’m here now.”

For someone who she has only met less than a dozen times, Skywalker’s words bring so much more comfort than she knows they should. She does not care for that, all she minds is the peace those few words bring her. They tether her, open her up to the Force, and to the healing presence of so many around her. They are all nursing wounds, learning to let go and feel new emotions in such dark times, too. Skywalker, though, is unreachable to her. He has no presence, no signature that she can feel a connection to, and she knows he is doing the same thing she had been. But, feeling the comfort he envelops her with, she cannot help but worry that it is for some different reason to her altogether.

She gasps when Skywalker lifts her, instinctively wrapping around him like a vine and allowing him to carry her somewhere new. Feeling safe there with him, almost as secure as she had felt with her Master, she does not ask where their destination will be. She lets him bear her weight, not shocked by the ease in which he can do so, and allows herself to be taken from the hallway.

His flesh hand sits on her spine to rub it, wearing a warm path with each movement and she relishes in the touch. It’s a foreign but welcome feeling. She does not know where they are going but the vibrancy of the Force and the smell cloying the air tells her that they’re the dining halls that they are moving closer to. 

She does not look around once they enter the halls, not wishing to see any attention drawn to herself, being so close to a Jedi Knight like this, so removed from what the Code may dictate as the best way for a Jedi to self-soothe. For just a minute or two, she wants to forget the Code and have, what she assumes to be, an age-appropriate reaction to the state of the galaxy. To the loss of her Master. And Skywalker creates a pocket of safety in the entire universe, one that is perfectly shaped to her and provides her with all she could want and need. 

Not wishing to depart from that snowhole in the furious blizzard of loneliness, she is reluctant to release him and have him leave her stranded.

“Wait here, okay? I’ll be right back, I promise you.”

Her fingers unfurl from his tunics and he draws back slowly, looking softly at her. He’s older than her but he looks so young, so fresh from adolescence, even with the scar cutting through his brow in a stripe down to his cheekbone, and his armour and the dirt on the contours of his face. He’s bright, shining like a sun, eyes even more aglow than before, and she wishes to tan her pale skin in his light. 

She observes him as he goes, noting how eyes follow him everywhere in both wonder and resentment, and it sobers her crying. He is seen, _watched,_ by everyone but he may as well be invisible. They do not seem to register a man, but the prophecy of the _Chosen One_ that rings out closely after his name is spoken, or the young boy that came to the temple far too late. No one sees _him._ They only see what they think he is or what they think he should or should not be. It strikes her as a lonely life to lead, but he does nothing. He does not shy away, nor does he behave meekly when asking for two bowls of something to be put on a single tray. 

He’s used to it, she realises, with another shoot of sympathy rocketing across her chest. 

She looks into the bowls, brow furrowing when she sees a pudding she does not recognise, but he hands her a spoon and pushes the tray towards her. He removes his own bowl, digging into it immediately, eating as if it’s the first meal he’s had in days. Padmé takes her time, scooping it up to put it in her mouth, hesitantly at first, then with a little more speed when she realises that it’s far more delicious than she was anticipating. 

Skywalker is halfway through his pudding, when he looks back at her, grinning in a way she’s only ever seen him do to his Master. She meets his eyes, finding it impossible to not mirror the smile he gives her. He truly is handsome, as if the Force took its time in crafting him as a vessel of perfection, and she cannot comprehend how he thinks she — a sixteen-year-old Master-less Padawan — is worth spending his time with. He mustn't get much opportunity to be back in Coruscant, to have downtime from the fronts of the War he always seems to be at, and yet, he’s with her. Freshly returned from battle and he’s in the dining halls _with her_ to eat pudding. It feels so absurd. 

“Thank you,” she finds herself sputtering, “for spending your time with me. I know you’re busy and you probably have a million and a half other things you would rather be doing. But, thank you.”

His smile falters, but it doesn’t make him any less beautiful. “I wasn’t going to leave you when you’re in pain, Padmé.”

Something within her glows, most likely the childish crush on Skywalker that she is sure she pushed down many cycles before, at the sound of her name from his lips. It’s a weird combination to be full of so many butterflies the same colour as his eyes and yet have a dull void in the pit of her stomach. 

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she admits for the first time aloud, looking over the Knight for any signs of surprise that she does not feel entirely in control of herself. “I’m not in pain, but it’s like when you put a bacta patch on a cut and the tingling has stopped.”

“You feel numb?” It isn’t sympathy that dawns on his face, but a kindness Padmé hasn’t seen since he calmed her in a training _salle_. She doesn't have to answer, she knows that, that would be the only confirming what they both already know. “I think you have to look within yourself to see if that numb feeling is the dulling of a pain after a sharp wound, or if it’s an ache you’ve grown used to. If it’s the first one, it means you’re healing, like you’ve managed to use the Force as a bacta patch.

“If it’s the latter, you’ll have to root the pain out because you’re trying to heal over it - rather than heal in the absence of it.”

Her mouth twitches, knowing that what he says makes sense, “Should I meditate?”

“If that’s what helps you find answers within yourself. But, don’t be afraid to ask for help when you feel at your worst, there will always be someone to help you. Even if… Even if the person you were turning to before isn’t there.”

Her nose itches with her nostrils flaring, the pre-warning of more tears, but she catches herself and dives her spoon back into her dessert.

“He brought me a lightsaber, you know?” Skywalker hums, fiddling with his own pudding, looking down into it like it’ll show him what to say. “On Geonosis, it was your Master that brought me a ‘saber.”

Padmé wants to tell him that she knows. That, truthfully, it was her who begged her now-gone Master to take another weapon with him and to ensure that Skywalker was not without one. But she doesn’t, she just watches the leather of his gloved hand wrinkle and smoothen with his every movement. The hand lost wielding the lightsaber that had been brought to him through her last words to her Master. He lost a part of himself, just as she has, all centred on the same thing. It only makes her recoil from the idea of violence more. 

“Did it hurt?” She doesn’t take her eyes away from where she knows there to be a cybernetic beneath the material. 

“There were bigger pains at the time,” Skywalker admits, surprising Padmé into looking at his face. His expression is just as far away as she feels, as if he is also floating through that void in the Force that she’s been in since Geonosis, but it twinges something in her heart to see how familiar he is with it. He is used to it. He’s at home in this feeling she still does not recognise. “The physical means nothing when the soul hurts.”

“Oh,” is all she can find within herself to reply with There’s nothing much for her to say in response; she’s never really been hurt before, he doesn’t know of the turmoil Skywalker appears to be well-acquainted with. 

He’s so deep in it, submerged, and then he isn’t. He’s bright-eyed and grinning at her, the embodiment of what she thinks could be joy.

“Enough of that,” Skywalker dismisses, as if brushing away his own emotions when he waves his flesh hand in front of himself. “Did you hear that I was posted to Naboo when I was with the senator?”

She feels the involuntary widening of her eyes, leaning towards him, puffing forgotten in front of her, “What was it like?”

“It’s…” Skywalker struggles to find the words, before laughing a little, “indescribable. There’s so much water and greenery, it’s so _alive_ there, as if the Force fills every molecule of every single thing. You can almost breathe the Force in, it’s that full.”

Excitement bursts in Padmé’s veins, even if she does not outwardly express it, wanting to hear each and every little detail about her home world. She restrains herself somewhat, wondering what is and is not appropriate for her to ask. Erring on the side of caution, she latches onto politics. She’s good at politics, it’s what she knows best.

“If you went with the senator, did you meet the queen?”

“Of course. She’s incredibly intelligent and well-loved by the people for her age, it’s truly amazing. Senator Andierre says the queen is remarkably astute, and I would have to agree, from what I met of the queen.” 

“It brings me peace that Naboo is in such safe hands.” 

Padmé wonders if she means it, deep down, if there isn’t a seed of jealousy there, but there isn’t. Her words ring with truths, that she is relieved and calmed by the fact Naboo has security. She knows that somewhere there, she has parents and a sister, and whilst she cannot recall memories of them, she hopes that they always remain happy and healthy. Just like every other Nabooian, just like every other citizen of the galaxy - Republic or not. It brings her a lightness, not one in the Force, but a weight in her mind. It has been so long since someone spoke to her about her home planet, that she could merely speculate over the state of things there.

“As it does to me,” Skywalker agrees, providing an unexpected return of the sentiment. “Naboo is an example of what can be achieved in the universe, even in the response to blockades and war. They support and advocate the efforts for peace without remaining neutral, which is more than can be said for many other planets.”

Disrupting the moment, Skywalker glances sharply behind him, muttering a sharp, _“Kriff,”_ under his breath. He shrinks into his seat, not daring to look behind himself again. Padmé peers around, not knowing what has Skywalker reacting in such a way, and she’s baffled to see Master Yoda, Master Windu, and Master Kenobi approaching them. 

“Knight Skywalker,” Yoda’s voice hails and Padmé tilts her head, confused, when Skywalker cringes. Padmé finds it amusing that Skywalker felt he could hide from the three approaching Masters, both in the Force and physically. “Expecting your presence, many hours ago we were. Yet, with pudding and a youngling we find you.”

“Masters,” Skywalker bows his head in greeting, Padmé following in kind.

“Anakin, is your hunger truly that much that you forgot that the Council was waiting for your debrief?” Master Kenobi steps to Skywalker’s side, staring down at him with eyes coloured a few shades greyer than Skywalkers. 

Padmé feels her entire inner being plummet. It is impossible to not piece together that Skywalker most likely brushed off the Council to speak to and comfort her. Panic rifles through her, anxious that this will put both her and Skywalker out of favour with the Council. She feels like she should apologise, as she is the one who kept Skywalker from his duty, but Skywalker doesn’t look particularly phased by the interaction. 

In fact, a teasing delight sparks on Skywalker’s face as he looks straight back to his old Master. “You know how I am, Master. I am no good on an empty stomach.”

“I suggest, Knight Skywalker, you take your duties as a Jedi General of the Republic a little more seriously.” Master Windu does not even attempt to hide his contempt for Skywalker’s actions, a history of disdain evident in the Master’s lack of patience. 

Skywalker drops his gaze from Master Kenobi to close his eyes and take a deep breath in, showing far more restraint than Master Windu even attempts to. At least Skywalker doesn’t hide his discontent behind a false veneer of peace. He bears it openly, the struggle with his emotions laid bare for all to look at it, rather than veiling his antipathy to pass it off as something it is not. Padmé thinks that is far more becoming of a Jedi than Windu’s bear-derision. Skywalker feels it and even brushing it off requires a degree of acknowledgement. It’s rather admirable, to Padmé, at least.

“I take my duty seriously, as you can see from my successes; given the victories _and_ low casualty rates compared to most others.” There is no anger in the retort, merely confidence in the evidence he can provide, showing how well he can filter out his emotions. Padmé watches the Jedi Knight with keen interest, fingers curling around the edges of the tray her pudding sits on. “There was, however, a more pressing matter than reciting what was written in my report to the council.”

“What else could possibly be of greater importan—” The question from Master Windu cuts short, interrupted by Master Yoda. Who, from a glance, seems to have spent the entire interaction looking only at her.

“Positive, Knight Skywalker’s influence is.” Yoda’s words are not spoken to her nor to Skywalker, but towards Master Kenobi and Master Windu, as if having a deeper, more unspoken conversation with them. Without his mouth voicing his boundless displeasure, Master Windu’s expression falls to an unreadable one, alongside Master Kenobi’s. Yoda, however, bears what Padmé imagines is a smile. “A good teacher, he could be.”

“Surely not,” Windu responds, wholly unimpressed once more.

Yoda ignores him once again. Padmé wonders if it is a required trait for the Council to be so dismissive. “Decided, we have, who young Padmé’s Master shall be.” 

“Who?” Anakin questions, hand tightening noticeably, at least to Padmé, around his spoon.

“Anakin,” Master Kenobi interjects, “how can you know which tiny circuit in a transport ship is faulty from only the engine’s vibrations, yet still be so dense?”

“Perhaps it’s a trait learned from you, Master?” Skywalker fires back, and Padmé expects even a soft reprimand from Master Kenobi for his insolence, but Master Kenobi merely smiles, rolling his eyes in the way she knows Skywalker does. 

“Young Skywalker, ready for a Padawan, are you?” 

His spoon falls entirely from his hand. _“Me?!”_

If she was paying any attention at all to Skywalker, she would see a myriad of reactions rising and falling on his face, all with his mouth hinged open in shock. But, she isn’t. Instead, her own maelstrom churns inside of her, completely confused by the entire situation. She cannot grasp it with any sense of clarity, at all. In no sequence of events her mind has been able to produce did she ever think the Grand Jedi Master would think her a suitable fit for Anakin Skywalker. 

Her old Master was not old, but he was often very docile and neutrally inclined. But, Skywalker stands in complete contrast to him. Skywalker is a wartime General, commanding troops and heading into vicious battles to fight both droids and sentient separatist soldiers. It’s so far removed from what Padmé thinks she’s best suited for.

Nevertheless, there’s that small part of her, one that’s been tucked away since she was nine: the want to be Anakin Skywalker’s Padawan, to follow him to the very ends of the universe and be connected to him with a bond. She had been crushed when she realised she was too young, piling those emotions of dissatisfaction directly into the Force, and hiding that want away. Now, a temptation claws away in her lower stomach, and she finds herself unwilling to ignore it. 

“Yes, Anakin, _you.”_

“But, I-” Skywalker’s fumbling for words is what jars Padmé from her thoughts, thinking he will reject her. Instead, what comes out resounds within her as something thoroughly protective. “You’d really trust _me_ with a Padawan? With _Padmé?!_ It was barely a cycle ago that you were calling me reckless, Master, because I went behind enemy lines on my own. I’d get her hurt.”

“Perhaps having a Padawan will help you learn to not be so foolhardy in battle, Skywalker.” 

Padmé wishes Master Windu wouldn’t use that tone that he does, disliking the way it appears to get under Skywalker’s skin, and she doesn’t miss the flash of concern in Master Kenobi’s eyes when Skywalker’s shoulders bunch up beneath his armour. She very much doubts that Skywalker would coil up if it was Master Kenobi in his teasing voice who said the exact same thing, but there’s something about the friction between Skywalker and Windu that unsettles her. Anakin wasn’t saying that as a way to enable his recklessness, he stated it out of concern, and Windu had skewed it to fit whatever negative image he holds of Skywalker. Something at the back of her neck prickles.

She wishes now, more than ever, that she was blessed with Skywalker’s confidence to counter with a sharp riposte.

“It gets results, doesn’t it?” Skywalker bites, already twisting his body towards the Master and it’s Kenobi’s hand settling on his shoulder that keeps him from standing. 

“An endless debate, this could be and concern us now, it should not. When, still at hand, the question of Skywalker being young Padmé’s Master is.” 

Settling in his seat to give his attention to her, Skywalker leans forward and slants his head inquiringly, almost nervous. “Is that something you would want? For me to be your Master?”

She doesn’t hesitate when she nods, staring straight into his eyes to hold onto the peace there, and she allows her nine-year-old self to speak. “Of course, Master.”

⁂

Anakin hears the door of the rooms he shares with Obi-Wan slide, but the sound of footsteps does not follow. He knows it’s Padmé, he can sense her there. He places the datapad he’s reading down onto the seat beside him, rising to his feet to walk soundlessly towards the entrance. 

Padmé is hesitating, he can feel it, and then he sees it with his eyes, her with her only possessions held tightly in her hands. He takes a moment to look them over; a pile of identical folded robes, a bag of toiletries, and her lightsaber. She appears to linger at the threshold, entirely unaware that he knows she’s there. She’s got her eyes closed and is muttering under her breath to herself, almost as if she’s meditating on the idea of entering at all. She’s worrying over something unseen by Anakin and that already makes his chest ache.

He approaches her, speaking softly to not startle her, “Padmé, you can come in.”

She still jolts, totally unaware that he’s standing barely a metre from her, and he holds his hand out to her. He takes her items from her with his other hand, freeing up both her arms. The movement of her placing her fingers on his palm seems almost instinctual for her and Anakin likes that, already pleased by the trust she has in him. He knows he will do anything to keep her safe, and this is a sign that she is aware of that, on some level, too. 

He places her meagre possessions on the closest table, not needing to nudge any tools or pieces of circuitry out of the way, given how Obi-Wan hastily cleaned the communal rooms whilst Anakin showered and changed his robes. He can see that Padmé looks around curiously, enjoying her mild surprise to see possessions other than datapads and eating utensils in the room. Qui-Gon’s kyber crystal sits on the sill of the window, a few engineered trinkets litter surfaces, and a pile of holobooks sit in a neat stack in the corner of the room. Everything else that would usually cover the surfaces — the odd arm of a maintenance droid, a plethora of tools, and the abundance of tea — is hidden away in Anakin and Obi-Wan’s room or in the kitchenette’s cupboards. 

“I’ve moved my things into Obi-Wan’s room, so you can have your own,” Anakin informs her, heading to one of the three doors that sprouts from the communal area. “It’s the room closest to the ‘fresher, which is behind the door just next to this one, so you don’t have to go far. And, uh, even though your door will allow both myself and Obi-Wan to come in, we won’t unless you ask us to. The only times we will come in, is if you need one of us to be there, and it’ll be the same on any ship we’re on, too. And if you, um, ever need more privacy, don’t hesitate to say, and we’ll accommodate you as best we can.”

He can see how she blushes when he says these things and scratches at the back of his neck nervously. He’s glad that it’s slowly creeping into the late night, hoping to be able to usher her into bed so that he can head down to the hangar and work on his starfighter to process everything that’s managed to happen in a single cycle. It is almost laughable how the battlefield seems to harbour far more peace for Anakin than the Jedi temple, but that’s most likely because he knows droids. He’s known droids for far longer than he’s known the Jedi, so he guesses that it makes sense for them to be infinitely more predictable.

“Thank you, Master,” she gives him a small smile, following where he motions for her to go through the door. 

It irks him a little to hear her call him that and he has to hold himself back from shuddering at the sound of the word, loaded with so many negative emotions in his mind that hearing it be directed at him is bitter. It stings like a whip to the back, but he brushes it off. 

Instead, he keeps his eyes on his Padawan. She stands in the room, looking around it, which he assumes she’s doing to make things a little less awkward. The room she had with Nicanas Tassu would have been identical to this, so there’s no other explanation for it, other than to try to lessen some tension. 

He turns away to pick her things back up, unsure of why he placed them down in the first place, his own nerves getting to him at the thought of having a Padawan. This is someone _, a child,_ he is responsible for — and so soon after being knighted himself. He thinks his anxiety is well-warranted, but Obi-Wan held no qualms over him becoming Padmé’s Master, and the Padawan in Anakin knows that means something. Obi-Wan trusts him enough, believes in him enough, to know that he can be good for someone to learn from. 

Thinking of that, of his old Master’s confidence in him, he heads to the jamb of Padmé’s door and clears his throat. She turns to look him over, coming over to receive her items from him, immediately kneeling to put them neatly away in a set of cubbyholes on the other side of the room. Where she puts her night clothes, Anakin used to have chaotic stacks of datapads loaded with mechanical schematics and droid designs, and the room already looks infinitely more peaceful in her presence.

He lets her settle on her own, returning to his datapad and the seat he occupied before she arrived, and he busies himself with that. He can hear her moving around, the ruffling of her robes as she shifts in them and the small exhales of satisfaction she lets out when something is to her liking. He’s on his third datapad when he senses her moving towards the door, peering out to see if he’s there. 

“Would you like to work on our bond, Master?” Padmé steps towards him, her cream and brown Jedi robes traded in for ochre coloured sleep clothes. Her hair, however, is in the same disarray it was when he found her earlier on in the day. It’s vastly out of character for her, from what he knows, and it bothers him softly. Something is certainly off within her, he can even sense it within her. 

They already have a bond, a thin string that dangles between them in the Force, but it pales in comparison to the bright, arm-like one he has with Obi-Wan. Despite Anakin no longer being his Padawan. So, he reaches out to her with his mind, offering her an invisible hand that she takes just as easily as she had his physical one. He moves down to the floor, pushing the table in the centre of the room with the Force, and she follows to sit opposite him, in the balanced meditative pose the Jedi are taught as younglings.

Instead of mimicking her, he kneels with his thighs parallel to his calves, his feet tucked well beneath him. “What do you do to meditate?” He smiles at her evident perplexing over his phrasing, so he elaborates. “Sometimes, traditional methods do not allow me to access the calm that it should. So, I immerse myself in doing something, instead.”

She shifts to follow after him, mirroring his pose. “What do you do?”

“I fly or fix things, those are my go-to options, the ones that are most effective. If I can lose myself and feel at one with the Force in doing those things, I take that as a form of meditation, because being idle hasn’t always helped me.” He removes his glove as he explains this, showing her his cybernetic arm. “Late at night, when I can’t sleep, I’ll fiddle with the tiny details of this and add improvements time by time. It gives me something to occupy my mind with, without being too disruptive to Obi-Wan… Or, the rest of the temple. But, I want us to find something you can do, too.

“Can you think of anything?”

She chews the inside of her lip as she closes her eyes, brow furrowing as she looks within herself for a time outside of meditation that she felt almost as calm. He can almost see the projections of the memories she rifles through, startled by the fact some of her most peaceful moments have been in _his_ presence. 

_Almost the opposite to Obi-Wan,_ Anakin amuses himself with thinking.

She finds something, he can sense it, and he waits expectantly, meeting her brown eyes when they open to see him. She places her hands up to her temples, touching along her hairline then smiling. “My hair. Doing my hair in the mornings and taking it down in the evenings, that’s when I feel most comfortable within myself.”

It isn’t wholly unexpected for her to say that, but it hurts something deep within Anakin to know that she has been neglecting an action that centres herself. He doesn’t let his presence in the Force, or his facial expression, portray that to her. Instead, he shuffles to draw closer to her on his knees.

“Should we do it together, to help with our bond?” He offers and her eyes light up, nodding before he’s even finished speaking. “Why don’t you go and collect whatever you need for it? I’ll wait for you here.”

She does just that, returning with a combing brush and a box for the hairpins that dangle from her tresses, and she sits even closer to him than before. 

“Tell me what to do, Padmé, but make sure that you can still enter the right headspace to meditate.” 

“Take all the pins out, I’ll do the brushing,” she suggests, already closing her eyes again, waiting for him to begin.

The ones at the front are easy to remove, given that they do not thread completely into her hair and that’s where she begins to comb through her tangled curls, noting that the brush releases an oil as it goes. She is meticulous, allowing more of the oil to soak into her hair where it knots the most, going from root to tip with each brushstroke. Anakin uses the Force to find pins and clips, floating them down into the box that sits open on the floor.

He reaches out to her mind and she allows him in, relishing in the calm and the comfort there. Then, in a smudge of a greyish mist or fog, something encroaches on her. She clasps to his mind in a mild pinch of fear, and he presses his hands to her head.

“You can reach out to your feelings, if you think it will help you,” he tells her, feeling the way the dim confusion curls around her mind, opening his mind to her in the way she has with him. “If they are too much for you to handle on your own, pass them along to me and I can help you.”

She does just that, little by little, sharing this tiny consuming part of her with him. He feels it in his mind being greedily consumed by his own lingering shadow, but her expression smooths out until no lines remain on her forehead and around her mouth. He feels around her hairline for more pins, his fingers pausing when he feels her Padawan brain against his skin. A rigidity comes over her and he pulses a sense of calm over to her, praying to the Force that none of his own fear and anger taints it. 

“Take it out,” she mumbles, hands fumbling up to tug at where it’s bound at its tip. “Please, Master, take it out.”

Anakin doesn’t even have to think, his fingers are already working the plaiting part and smoothing the tress into the rest of her hair until no sign of the braid remains. She immediately calms, as if rid of something that was tethering her to her pain has released her. He strokes through her hair, following the trails her comb leaves, scratching gently along her scalp in a way his mother did to him.

Under that touch, she crumbles entirely. The brush falls from her hand and she lurches forward, heart-achingly loud hiccups of pain exploding from her. Padmé weeps, her forehead coming to press right against his sternum, and his stroking hands keep her there. He keeps his breathing even, hoping his heart will remain the same, knowing that soft, repetitive sounds can relax any torrent of emotions. He can feel the way her tears dampen the front of his tunic, sticking it uncomfortably to his chest, but he ignores it. His only true focus is being a harbour for her to dock into once the raging storm within her subsides.

There’s no way of telling how long it takes, but Anakin doesn’t move to do anything other than massage her scalp until her breath shudders out of her. She tries to speak, incapable at first, but she perseveres through, forcing the words out. “Will you give me a new one?” 

Hearing how much it pains her to receive another braid, Anakin wishes he could say no, just to make her feel better. Yet, he is powerless to this aspect of the Jedi Code. Neither of them has a choice to go against this clear-cut tradition. 

“How about we do it on the other side?” He offers, hoping that will placate the part of her responsible for this emotional upheaval. 

She looks up at him, glassy-eyed, tear stained, and pink-cheeked, and he truly thinks he would do anything to see her smile. Her nod of acquiescence tempers that thought, allowing him to give her a small upwards quirk of his lips and he shifts the way he sits. She moves to be curled up around herself, him sitting at her side with his legs stretched out before him, fingers finding three strands of hair behind her left ear and twining them together. 

Her tears do not stop, but they fall from her freshly closed eyes freely, as if she cannot bear to look at the braid. Once he is done, he cannot help but pull her towards his chest and embrace her there.

It’s like that, holding her in his arms, that he bows his head down to whisper in her ear, “Do not worry. Your pain is mine now, too.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> padmé meets the clones and anakin leaves, without her.

Anakin thinks that three weeks away from the front is far too much time. But, it’s what the Council has granted him to catch up on Padmé’s training, to spend hours in the training _salles_ with her to build speed, strength, and stamina. Like most Jedi, she does not complain nor gripe when she is tired. He can hear her muttering to herself every so often, too, pushing herself to keep up with him, reciting the words: _“The enemy will not care if you are tired.”_

Personally, Anakin would let Padmé rest if she wants it, soft to the ways her eyes round cutely whenever she asks for something. She’s almost seventeen, but she’s suddenly back to ten-years-old in his mind whenever she’s looking shyly up at him in wonder. It’s difficult to refuse her, but she either does not realise how those looks can make him yield, or she chooses not to exploit it. He hopes to the Force that it’s the former, amusedly dreading to think of the consequences if she dares to weaponize it to get her own way against him. He’d lay the galaxy at her feet, if she asked him to with that expression, but she never asks for that. She never asks for anything.

Anakin has to admire her tenacity. She still struggles when they run simulations and there are sentient beings who are in her path. Droids, she detaches herself, and slices through them with ease. They are not a life; they have no culture or history. 

But, staring down the barrel of a blaster held by a sentient her age, even in a simulation, Padmé hesitates. 

And those split-second lapses get you killed in battle. 

It’s Anakin’s only true worry about taking Padmé along on missions with him, that she will freeze or overthink a movement and it’ll cost her, her life. He doesn’t need to beat a dead Shaak, either, because he knows that she’s aware of this. She berates herself for her reluctance, placing far more punishment on her own shoulders than Anakin would ever dream of dealing her. 

On those days, Anakin ushers her off back to their rooms to shower and redress, and then brings her down to the hangar. They sit in a speeder, side by side with Anakin at the controls, and take off to fly through Coruscant. It isn’t quiet but it is peaceful. Anakin doesn’t twist and lurch the speeder with tricks, like he does for fun or to drive Obi-Wan to a point of near-fear. He slips between other transport, allowing Coruscant to unfurl before them in a menagerie of stars made up of artificial lighting, the movement of the speeders around them blurring to look like hyperspace. 

Anakin prefers Coruscant at night and he can sense the same from Padmé. In the daytime, Coruscant sits in a dusty, polluted fog, where only the most elite of buildings rise up above the band of smog. At night, the city is alive and bustling, mimicking the night sky in a blue haze. It’s peaceful, warm and inviting, once daylight has slipped away. 

They come to a stop somewhere different each time, hovering to look at the city splayed out before them to the endless reaches of the horizon. 

“Are you okay?” Anakin doesn’t usually ask this; he most often sits in silence beside her until she is ready to speak. 

But, she’s restless and confused, he can sense that much, and he remembers feeling that exact way when he was around her age. She had helped him then, in ways she never knew, and now he wants nothing more than to return the favour. He’s her Master and he wants her to find peace in him. He doesn’t want those years of confusion and aching for understanding with Padmé, like he did with Obi-Wan. He wants to know her deepest worries from a mere tendril of the force pressing from her mind to his, and he wants her to speak of fear and anger, so they can let it go together. 

He wants to have with Padmé what both Obi-Wan and himself wanted for each other but could never truly figure out until recently. He doesn’t want to only understand Padmé when she’s at the end of her apprenticeship, he doesn’t want that kind of disconnect from her.

With this question asked and hanging between them, Padmé closes her eyes and breathes slowly. Through their ever-strengthening bond, he can feel her searching for the words and grasping at the thoughts in her mind. Anakin doesn’t rush her. He sits, hands resting on his lap and body twisted awkwardly in his seat to look at her, and waits. 

It’s a struggle to keep himself still with the constant urge of restlessness that never leaves his body. It’s something he needs to do, though. Startling her will break her concentration and will have her pouring those emotions into the Force without discussing it with him first. He wants, more than anything, to _know_ his Padawan, and he can’t do that if trust doesn’t flood into their bond. 

Her eyes remain closed as she opens her mouth, tongue lifting between her parted teeth to sit idly for a handful of heartbeats, then her lips are moving. Words tumble out and Anakin soaks them all in. 

“I don’t know how you do it. I don’t know how you look a living, breathing sentient in the eyes and kill them,” she stutters and struggles, like she always does when she’s overwhelmed with emotions she does not yet know nor understand. “I know _why_ but I simply cannot fathom _how._ It’s someone else who has thoughts, feelings, and lives of their own, and yet we slay them with our ’sabers and call it battle. We go against every tenet we say we stand for to win a single fight. The cause, yes, is worthy and the Republic is worth more than simply standing for it. But, the death… There has already been so much death caused by this war and we cause _more_ of it, and I do not understand _how.”_

Death is a word that strikes Anakin like a fist. But, he does not flinch from the blow. The metaphorical pummelling he has taken being so shrouded by death feels like a Slavers’ whip upon his skin; something he no longer fears. Death has both brought him to dark depths and bloodied highs, both shadowed by the dark hand of anger and regret. It comes with such ease that it should frighten him and will surely terrify Padmé.

He does not think it appropriate for him to respond to her when he’s been so at home in violence and murder throughout his life. As a slave, it was everywhere — it was the whim of a Master to dole out beatings as a punishment or a pastime, whenever they saw it fit. Before joining the Jedi, the first lightsaber duel he encountered took the lives of both a Master and a Sith. And since he has been a Jedi, he has seen Padawans, Knights, Masters, and non-Force sensitives die on the tip of a lightsaber.

He’s been tainted and spoiled by death since he was born, but Padmé remains pure. One death has brushed up against her and nestled in her mind, but it was not a killing by her own hand and nothing of it was her fault. She knows grief. Not cauterised wounds and blood splattered across her face. 

Obi-Wan would be better suited to this conversation, but Anakin’s Padawan is looking to _him_ for guidance. She’s shown him her confusion, she doesn’t wish to follow it down a tunnel of darkness, and it’s his duty to help her. And he wants that, he relishes in it. There’s something about Padmé that wills Anakin to be the one that shows her what’s right and what’s wrong; to take her hand and lead her further into the light. 

He cannot tarnish her with his own thoughts and his own detachment from killing sentients that have pitted themselves as enemies of Jedi or the Republic. He knows that, it rings loudly in his head.

“In war…” Anakin starts, but pauses for a moment, watching as her eyes reopen to look into his. His voice dies in his throat, his hand immediately reaching out to touch her cheek and offer her a small smile, all he sees is fear. He reaches for any words that may placate her. “We fight and kill for peace. It sounds contradictory, but there are two sides in a war — and just as the other side won’t care if you’re tired, they don’t care that you’re a sentient either. They will shower you and your men in a rain of blaster bolts, plasma cannons, and whatever else they have to hand. Where you may see someone with a life, someone who lives and breathes like we do, they will only see a target. You kill to keep yourself from dying, so you can help those you’re fighting with and for.”

Padmé bows her head slightly and Anakin keeps his fingers against her face, his thumb rubbing just beneath the tender skin of her eye, he can sense the worry building up within her and sits patiently. If it was Obi-Wan before him, he’d be itching to get him to talk, chatting endlessly until Obi-Wan knew the only way to quiet Anakin would be to tell him whatever he wanted to know. But, Padmé is different. 

She needs to be coaxed into speaking by peace, to know that she will be both heard and listened to, and Anakin would do anything for her comfort.

“What if I can’t—,” she stutters, a single tear escaping her eye and warming the side of Anakin’s knuckle. “What if I’m the reason you, or Master Kenobi, or someone _dies_ because I can’t bring myself to do what I may need to?”

That very question hangs over Anakin like a dagger suspended from a single strand of hair each and every time he dwells on it. He knows Obi-Wan thinks of it often, too, glancing tellingly at Anakin whenever Padmé’s overwhelmed by her unwillingness to take sentient life, even in training sessions. 

“Padmé, above all else, you always want to do what is _right_ and I know you’ll take that with you into any fight and any battle. When the time comes, you’ll do what you need to.”

Anakin doesn’t know if that’s the right thing to say, especially when she withdraws from his touch to cast her eyes over the city sprawling with life before them. She takes a moment, just breathing and centring herself, and Anakin can sense the anxiety slowly ebbing into the Force. She glances back to him, hesitantly smiling, and Anakin can only be overwhelmed with the sense that he’s done something good.

⁂

Anakin’s body shelters Padmé almost entirely when she follows him towards Anakin’s flagship, the _Resolute,_ and she’s thankful for that. She knows what will greet her, but she isn’t quite sure that she wishes to welcome the sight of it yet. The concepts and realities of what her Master and Master Kenobi discuss over their meals never genuinely sank into her mind. Despite her anxiety over killing, despite her fears of being the death of the innocent, she’s never truly considered _war._ Talk of battalions and war tactics felt almost mythical and out of reach to her, despite her knowing they were founded in reality most of the galaxy was living in. Her grief sheltered her from so much, from all this overwhelming violence in the universe, and for that she feels both thankful and apologetic. It never feels close, despite the biting losses of Knights, Masters, and Padawans she feels as dull as a toothache. 

The war is something to be heard muttered between those living it and the younglings overflowing with curiosity. The temple allows Padmé to cocoon herself in a sense of _naïveté_ that surrounds her in a pseudo-peace, even in her darkest moments of tumult. Not even in accepting Anakin Skywalker as a Master did she suspect that _she_ would look out at a battalion of clones arranged just to meet her.

Now, a vast swathe of them stand directly in front of her, all easily identifiable in their armour and uniformity as she peers around her Master’s torso. Equidistant from one another in their perfect rows, they all remain impossibly still. The sight renders her speechless, entirely lost in the vast endlessness of the bodies. Anakin stops and Padmé draws into his side, the cloth of his robes brushing past her cheek when he shifts, and she knows she should be more confident. She should inspire something within these men, but all she can think of is her old Master. 

She’s plagued with thoughts of how she should have greeted the clones that would fight with him under his numbered banner. She wonders what colour they would have used to adorn their armour with, which details would cover their helmets and shoulders, and if he would be a talented General like Anakin is famed to be. She thinks of it all whilst wanting nothing more than to cling to Anakin and never let go of him. His presence leaves her feeling secure in her thoughts and entirely safe by his side. 

Anakin’s body moving and his hand on her shoulder is what jars her from the thoughts in her mind, he brings her closer to the trooper that stands in front of all the others and smiles down at her. 

The bright happiness on Anakin’s face almost melts Padmé inside entirely, and she doesn’t think — outside of his teasing of Master Kenobi — that she’s ever seen him so comfortable. His other hand comes up to rest on the trooper’s shoulder, and he glances between them almost as if he’s excited to introduce them.

“Padmé, this is Rex, the Captain of the 501st.” It doesn’t go unnoticed by Padmé that Anakin forgoes even mentioning the Captain’s numerical designation, but she doesn’t show her slight confusion. She knows Anakin wouldn’t do something without reason. “Captain Rex, this is Padmé, your new Commander.”

The trooper raises his hands to remove his helmet, revealing his face and a cropped buzzcut of blond hair, and all Padmé can think to do is smile and bow her head in greeting.

“Commander,” Rex acknowledges respectfully, bowing his head in return. 

The title warms Padmé’s cheeks slightly, entirely aware that she has not earned the reverence in which Captain Rex speaks it with, and all too starkly reminded — by the voice of her own self-doubt — that her hesitance to kill could very well lead to the end of this man’s life. 

Likely sensing the rising turmoil of her disquiet, Anakin removes his hands from both of their shoulders and gestures for her to follow him. Both he and Rex draw along the rows of the squads, allowing each trooper to remove their helmet and introduce themselves to her. They include both their nickname and their designated number, ensuring that they speak her newly commissioned rank in exactly the same manner that Rex did. It takes them a while to get through them all but Padmé is less overwhelmed by the sheer number of them. Rather, she’s inundated by the palpable sense of admiration and deference they all hold for her Master. 

Just Anakin’s presence and acknowledgement makes each clone’s force presence shine with such high regard that Padmé wonders if Anakin’s so-called ego comes from feeling this sensation from each of his men. In fact, when Padmé turns to see if he’s wearing that smug expression he often shows to Obi-Wan when he’s proven right, his countenance portrays something different entirely: pride.

He’s proud of these men, just as they are of him. It’s a mutual energy that flows between all of them and permeates in the air. Padmé almost feels giddy from it. She cannot help the smile that spreads her lips as they round back to the front of the men and they all look to her, one in the same and yet so individual.

She thinks it remarkable that they all have the same features, the same body, and the same face, and yet are so unique. No one clone _truly_ resembles another. They all have their differences, their personal preferences with their appearance, and it warms Padmé. Their armour, too, is painted with design accents of blue, bringing a sense of cohesive togetherness to them all. 

And it tethers a human life to her actions as both a Jedi and a Commander for the Grand Army of the Republic, these are the men she will lead, help, and work alongside. Within the temple, it’s frighteningly easy to think of clones as a collective, disposable entity. But, seeing each one of them, with their own personal tastes shown so evidently in every small thing they can edit about themselves, Padmé knows they’re more than what she’s allowed herself to believe. 

It dawns on her that her Master and Master Kenobi, whenever they would talk of the clones under their command, they would call them by name and speak of them as equals, only separated by titular rank. Yet, so many other Knights and Masters would speak with either less respect or more disregard. The vexation that pulses through Padmé is unavoidable, but it accompanies a spike in her anxiety. The pressure upon her shoulders increases tenfold when she realises that her decisions will not only hang her own and the other Jedi’s lives in the balance, but the clones, too. She will be leading all of these lives into battle and they will look to her for direction, she will be one of their Jedi.

“I know this is a bit overwhelming but remembering all their names will come with time,” her Master’s voice breaks through to say, and he’s bowed forward to talk more closely to her ear. “Don’t feel bad if you need to ask for a reminder. Though, you’ll be working alongside Rex a lot, so try to remember him closely. Okay?”

She nods, glancing back at the clone Captain and she gives him another uncertain smile, which he responds to with a respectful bow of his head. She’s certain she’ll remember Captain Rex, at the very least, and that the others will follow on quickly. They all look so unique to her and she is certain they will all mean something to her, too. 

Padmé wants them to look at her in the same way they do her Master, with the same glint in their eyes and shine in their Force signatures. 

“They’ll adore you, Padmé, you have nothing to worry about.” Anakin tells her when the doors close behind them, “Now, let’s find Artoo, so I can introduce you, too.”

⁂

It’s almost impossible to forget Rex, Padmé finds, with how often she finds him beside her Master. From the pieces of the conversations she’s overheard Anakin having with Master Kenobi on his comlink, the 501st were drafted out on another assignment whilst Anakin remained on Coruscant with Padmé. But, the men are back to await Anakin’s return to the front, giving them time to recuperate and make any necessary adjustments to their hardware of weaponry, armour, or ships. 

Wherever her Master goes, his Captain is not too far behind. It’s a time of war and the actions of a General and Captain are bound, even if one is a Jedi and the other something much of the Republic believes is an item to be had. Master Kenobi acts similarly with his Commander, Cody. It is not in the same symbiotic way her Master and Master Kenobi move with one another, though, so attuned and accustomed to the other’s skill, thoughts, and presence. Yet, there’s something different about the four of them together. The clones refer to one another as _vod_ and Padmé thinks if the Jedi had such words to express such a concept, Anakin and Master Kenobi would embody it.

War is a constant push and pull motion; a force that drives these four men together into a brotherhood that can galvanise or tear the universe apart. Such things should not shock Padmé, not in how attached she has grown to her Master in a matter of weeks. Her inner world tilts and bends when he enters the room she’s in, as if it’s contorting to revolve around him. She lets him into her mind so easily, especially when they meditate together, and he truly seems to _know_ her.

Still, it’s different. Perhaps it’s the emotion that floods her cheeks with pink when he helps her with her hair, or merely the drive to be the best Padawan and Jedi she can be, but Padmé wants to be closer to Anakin. Not in the same way as he is with Master Kenobi, but perhaps to a similar intensity. 

She doesn’t simply want to be at his side, sensing his next move, she wants to feel him as if they are extensions of one another. 

So, she cannot help but feel crushed inside when the Council deems Padmé too inexperienced, too hesitant, for her Master’s next mission. She anticipates that Anakin would rebel against the Council, especially Master Windu, on her behalf. Yet, her Master isn’t as stubborn with Windu as she’s come to know him to be. He accepts Padmé’s lack of involvement with something akin to relief and it offends something within her. 

No one is more aware of her shortfalls than Padmé herself, but to see her Master accept to leave her behind so readily, it feels like a bitter betrayal. She may not be ready for lightsaber battle, she accepts that - even though, truthfully, she is working each and every day to better herself - but she could at least remain on the _Resolute,_ in the command centre. That would act as some kind of placebo, telling her that she would at least be doing _something._ Yet, she’s going to remain on Coruscant with her Master so far away, so out of reach. 

But, there’s something else, too. 

It hurts more than that bitter taste of her Master’s apparent lack of belief in her. 

It’s the sharp memories of being left alone by Master Tassu, how she’d been concerned for Anakin and not her Master, how she’d worried about Anakin’s return so much because she had been so sure that Master Tassu would return to her. Then, the Master she’d come to bond with and feel as an extension of herself, was suddenly gone. She didn’t know that when his presence had faded from her senses and out into hyperspace, that it would be the last time she’d feel that pleasant glow in her head. She’d been naïve and untouched by death, but now anxiety clings to the back of her throat, with it’s claws digging in deeply.

She knows that, in reality, being on the _Resolute,_ with Anakin fighting below without her, would do nothing to placate her worries. He’d still be too out of reach for her to help, to protect, to shield from death. She may as well be in the temple, if she isn’t going to be of any genuine use to him on this mission. 

However, she knows he isn’t thinking with that mindset. His brain has made another connection, he has another reason for leaving her behind, and it plagues her that it may be her lack of willingness to fight sentients. 

She’s no longer reading a news report from the datapad in her hand, just staring at the screen as her thoughts run a loop in her head. The Basic is nothing more than blurred marks on the screen, the pictures distorted by her eyes’ lack of focus, and the sound of Master Kenobi’s kettle bubbling has faded to almost nothing. All she can think about is the visible shift in Anakin when Master Windu had recommended that he should leave Padmé behind; that unreadable expression that was replaced with easement.

What seemed to bring him peace only brings her turmoil and self-doubt. And she cannot understand why. It doesn’t frustrate her or make her angry, despite knowing she should be feeling those things, it makes her feel hurt beyond all else.

“You know, you can tell me if something is bothering you, don’t you?” Anakin murmurs to her, startling her into glancing over to him. 

With the way the light comes in through the window, he looks boyish. It’s almost as if his Padawan braid should still curl around his shoulder, just like it did whenever she saw him before Geonosis, as he picks apart something in his arm. He flexes his mechanical fingers once, twice, three times before he turns to her. 

His expression is not expectant, as if he knows he isn’t entitled to know each and every one of her thoughts, and nor is it blank. Instead, his brow is furrowed, darkening his eyes with ample amounts of concern. 

“It’s nothing,” she begins, ready to deny the way her mind is taunting her, but the warmth of the moment, of seeing him care about her feelings, urges her curiosity. And another voice in her mind, the one that has always urged her to champion justice, wants to give him the chance to explain. She wants to know why he’s leaving her behind. “But, why am I not going with you?”

Anakin’s hand moves to rest on his lap, near his knee, but nothing else in his countenance changes. He isn’t brushing her off and he isn’t upset by her questioning, he simply contemplates his answer before providing it for her. 

“I didn’t want your first task with me to be so…” he’s careful with what he chooses to say next, the process of selecting the word written plainly on his face, “intense. I’ve adjusted for battle already, but only as myself, as a solitary Jedi Knight. I’ve not done that as the Master of a Padawan yet. I can account for myself, for the men of the 501st, for Obi-Wan. But, as a Jedi, _you_ are my biggest responsibility. The risks of me taking you into this battle, where I don’t know how either of us will respond to it, will outweigh any teachable moment we may have. 

“I don’t want to take you anywhere that I don’t feel like I can keep you safe, to keep you alive.”

Breath catches in Padmé’s throat, both her eyes and mouth rounding in soft shock. A feeling she’s smothered for so long, a warm bubbling sensation that she knows will redden her cheeks, rears its head like a Reek prepared to charge. Padmé has never truly been ashamed of her crush on Anakin Skywalker, no matter how much her Initiate Clan teased her for it, but she tries to smother it at any opportunity to keep it from their bond. 

Yet, it’s simply so difficult to keep it hidden when words like that slip so seriously from her Master’s mouth. His brows furrow and lips almost pitch into a frown, it’s sincerity bared so plainly for her to see, and she’s sure she can see his hands trembling. He truly means it, from the depths within himself that Padmé does not know, and she wonders what it would feel like to touch the emotion with her mind.

She thinks it’d be white-hot, something that would blister her skin and burn holes straight through her flesh, but it’d be beautiful. It would be nothing like the other Jedi she’s ever encountered. It wouldn’t be watered down and dissolved into the Force, it wouldn’t be transient and ignorable. It would be pure and unfiltered, unrestrained.

She’d want to grasp it with both hands and hold it to her chest.

“Padmé,” Anakin mutters, drawing her back to focusing on his face, but she can see the way his hands close into tight fists. The fabric of his tunic bunches up and his knuckles pale to a sickly tone of white. “I won’t lose you.”

She should recoil and shudder away from it, but she does nothing beside soak it in. It feeds that bubbling, even as she settles it, and she cannot hold frustration for her Master anymore. It’s not her incompetence that he keeps close, it’s her. And she’s never felt that before. She has never been someone’s true priority and no part of her wishes to punish him for that. 

Words laden with understanding bite at the back of her tongue to be released, but Anakin stands suddenly, face still screwed up slightly with concern before he disappears into the room he shares with Master Kenobi. Padmé stands in the blurred space between their small kitchenette and the small seating area, datapad held lightly between her fingers, only able to see where the doors slide shut behind her Master.

And she wonders if she was right; if the care he has for her smoulders until it burns.

⁂

Padmé’s hand rests on Artoo, feeling the small indents and scratches in the plating beneath her fingertips, and he beeps mutedly to communicate something she doesn’t understand. Clones move around her, saluting and respectfully muttering, "Commander," in her direction as they pass. But, her eyes remain on her Master. He’s speaking closely with Master Kenobi, the two of them exchanging something playful that Padmé most likely wouldn’t grasp, even if she could hear what is being said. He knows she’s there, too, as he glances at her in uneven intervals, and she’s waiting patiently to see him off. 

They aren’t supposed to leave for another hour or so, but she doesn’t wish to miss a single part of this process, both to show that it doesn’t scare her and to be as close to her Master as she can be until he’s entirely out of reach. It’s attached in all the ways a Jedi shouldn’t be, but she thinks she can warrant herself this one thing. She doesn’t have her family nor her home planet — those two things she’s always felt an unknown pull towards, and she doesn’t have her Initiate Clan by her side anymore. What she’s supposed to have had since passing her Initiate Trials is the solid presence of a Master at her side, to be a guiding hand towards the light, but her path has been broken and rerouted. She’s already lost one Master and she’s only just begun to feel more grounded in having a new one, she doesn’t wish to let go just yet.

It’s something she’s aware that she should meditate through — both to understand why she is experiencing these feelings and unpick why she doesn’t wish to release them. It is almost certainly something she should discuss with her Master, to inform him that she’s struggling and that she needs his help in finding a way out of these emotions, but that would mean confessing something she isn’t ready to. It would leave her bare to him in ways a Padawan should not be with her Master. It would show him all the emotions that coil around her heart the moment she even hears someone utter his name. 

She thinks she would die if he was to ever find out. She can imagine it all so clearly, his discomfort to be the object of his teenage Padawan’s affections and the subsequent humiliation of someone knowing the true depth of her heart. She’s read it in books and seen it on the odd Holodrama, of how men her Master’s age tear through and abuse the hearts of girls her age. And she knows Anakin, he would never do that. But, her feelings alone, they would convince him that he has. 

And he would let her go. 

He would force her away. Not only him, too, but the other Jedi. Especially the Council.

She’d be severed from someone else meant to show her the light, but this time, her and her emotions would be the looming darkness. Not grief, not war, not the sensation of losing over two-hundred Jedi in a single day. And it would break her, just as she’s piecing together her strength again, bolstered by Anakin’s presence at her side.

She has failures, she knows that, ones a Jedi should not have, but she’s still learning. She can, at least, give herself that much leniency.

Artoo gives a solid beep, one that has her looking to where she can see Anakin approaching, Captain Rex flanking on his left side, and Padmé musters up a smile. She greets them both, Artoo producing some whistling sound to Anakin, who pats his dome right beside Padmé’s hand.

“Not too much longer now, buddy,” Anakin informs the astromech, his hand falling to a certain spot on Artoo’s body. Surprisingly, the droid doesn’t make another noise, he merely opens up one of his numerous compartments, and Padmé observes her Master take something out.

When he has what Artoo was holding for him, the astromech forms another string of beeps that Anakin shakes his head in response to. Instead of communicating any more, Artoo wheels himself off and Captain Rex goes along with him, both of them convening with the clone wearing the medic’s insignia on his shoulder plating. Padmé watches them leave before turning back to Anakin, giving him a moment.

He’s looking at whatever he got from Artoo, skimming his thumb over where it’s cradled in his palm, a leathery string dangles from between his fingers. He’s evidently fond of the object, staring at it with a soft yet distant gaze. 

“What’s that?” She doesn’t try to peer or look at whatever it is, as Anakin’s quick to tuck it into his robes. Likely for safe keeping. Just like he does with her, she knows their boundary, that they’re not obligated to know one another inside out — no matter how much she longs to know each of her Master’s deepest thoughts.

“A little thing for luck,” he smiles and pats where he’s hidden the item away. “Wouldn’t go into battle without it.”

He’s looking at her, but his eyes are alight with something, as if he’s suddenly itching to get back to the front. As if everything is in place for him to go, for him to defend the morals and honour of the Republic, and Padmé almost wishes that expression wasn’t there.

Still, she cannot help but ask, if only to masochistically distract herself from his muted glee, “How are preparations?”

“Ahead of schedule.” Those three words are spoken with a boasting intonation, and Padmé’s thoughts ponder if she should be impressed.

“The 501st are supposed to be some of the GAR’s finest, is that not to be expected?” She’s both teasing and genuine in her question, but her Master leans in on the teasing. Very much like she should have expected.

“Who do you think got them to be the finest?” Anakin’s smile and raise of his eyebrows is more than telling and Padmé finds it all too easy to laugh.

Boldly, bolstered by Anakin’s reactions, Padmé quips: “Captain Rex, surely.”

It takes a moment, her Master unfamiliar with Padmé emitting anything overly jovial, but he seems to want to encourage it, offering up a dramatically wounded look. “I think you’ll find he’s learnt everything he knows from me.”

“I think, Anakin, if that were true, the 501st would not have the prestige it does have,” the familiar tone of Master Kenobi interjects, only causing Anakin to roll his eyes and Padmé to smile that little bit wider. Their interactions have always fascinated her. “Now, you should get on that transport to leave, otherwise you’ll be what’s going to hold your men up.”

Padmé expects Anakin to respond verbally to the gentle ribbing, but he doesn’t. He trains his attention on Padmé, looking upon her softly for a moment before laying both his hands on her shoulders. “I know I don’t have to say this to you, but, please, look after yourself. Eat, sleep, do whatever work you’re assigned, and, just... get out into the temple a little more: see younglings, do some reading in the archives, or find someone to train with. Don’t lock yourself away, okay?”

It’s an awkward little speech but, again, Anakin’s earnestness sets off tingling in her fingers and in the pits of her stomach. 

He, then, tacks on: “I’ll be back before you know it.”

“I don’t doubt it.” The words sound falsely light-hearted to her ears, but Anakin’s smile doesn’t even dim, despite surely sensing how desperately she wants her longing for him to stay at bay. “Maybe I’ll just wait right here for you, if you’ll be that quick.”

“I’ll expect you to be here the moment I return, then. Right in this spot.”

“I’ll be here,” she insists, enjoying the way the spark in his eyes seem to burn brighter at the thought. “All you have to do is get back.”

“And I will.” She wants to believe him, so she doesn’t say anything more on it, all she does is smile. 

Captain Rex appears over Anakin’s shoulder, calling for Anakin’s attention with his usual, “General Skywalker,” which has the man in question looking back at him and nodding.

“Now, what did I say to do whilst I’m gone?”

She echoes what he said to her barely a minute prior: “Look after myself.”

Stepping back towards his Captain, Anakin tells her, “And, I’m sure it’ll be you next time.”

Padmé tilts her head to the side, confused. His long legs have taken him metres away from her before she can even conjure up her reply of, “I don’t follow?”

“My lucky charm. Perhaps it’ll be you,” he hollers back to her, earning a disapproving look from Master Kenobi at his side, but Anakin doesn’t seem to pay it any heed.

He’s looking directly at Padmé, instead, grinning and waving, until he disappears up onto the transport that will take him to the _Resolute._ And, beneath the superficial layer of blushing and fluttering in her stomach, the crushing feeling of Anakin being out of sight and heading to war sets in. All she can do is stand there, the rest of the hour before the transport ships close their doors ticking by slowly, with Master Kenobi at her side. 

Still, the only thing she truly has to comfort herself with is that her possible final goodbye to her Master was one filled with his delight and laughter. She thinks she would cry at the thought alone, if she wasn’t standing in the hangar, in front of so many people. She opts to bite the insides of her cheeks, instead. 

It doesn’t help much. But, that’s no revelation to her. She didn’t expect it to. 

⁂

The first several days in her Master’s absence are, unexpectedly, easy. Master Kenobi’s presence leaves an imprint of warmth in their shared suite of rooms; he’s quiet and mindful of the things he does in the public areas. He’s not as messy as Anakin, he doesn’t leave datapads and half complete protocol droid arms on random surfaces, and Padmé finds that calming. Living alongside Anakin isn’t chaotic, but it’s a swift change of pace from her old Master, and that feels even more cramped in when there’s three of them living in a space designed to meet the basic needs of two.

Padmé doesn’t know if it’s accidental, but Master Kenobi calls her to dinner each evening, he brews her tea, and knocks on her bedroom door to remind her to complete her training details. He sinks into the role of pseudo-Master when Anakin is off fighting on behalf of the Republic numerous systems away. It fits with him and it’s most likely instinctual, having spent a decade of standard years nurturing Anakin to be the Jedi Knight he is now. 

It is comforting, Padmé finds, to not be entirely alone in the absence of her Master. In fact, in the times where Padmé cannot simply reach out to find Anakin with her mind, she takes solace in how similar Master Kenobi’s presence is to Anakin’s. There are slight differences between the two, as there is between any lifeform, but it’s as if there’s an imprint of Anakin on Master Kenobi. And, if she looks hard enough, she’s sure she will see an impression of Master Kenobi on her own Master. 

It’s a piece of Anakin when he’s gone. It’s the companionship of someone else who cares that she’s eaten, bathed, and completed the odd duty she’s assigned around the temple. And it’s someone bright that diminishes the shadowy strength of her grief and fear for Anakin’s safety. 

But, Master Kenobi is just as wanted on the frontlines of battles as her Master is, and his warmth leaves with him as the _Negotiator_ leaves orbit. She watches him go, just as she did with Anakin, and pretends that she doesn’t feel the sting of being left behind. 


	5. brightness of twin suns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anakin returns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am so sorry about the delay in posting this chapter. i was finishing my masters thesis and i got a new job, which took up so much of my time in the last few months. but, work is chilling out a lot more, so i will be able to write more.
> 
> now, i have made a few changes to the previous chapters - namely with their ages, they're now 4 years apart, rather than 5, but that doesn't infringe on the plot too much!
> 
> i really hope you enjoy this chapter, and will make sure to work swiftly on the next.

It’s early in the morning, long before Coruscant’s four moons are replaced with its one blazing sun, when someone enters into the public areas of the suite. She knows who it is the moment the sound of movement wakes her. Padmé can sense the tranquil aura that surrounds Master Kenobi. Her surprise lies in that she’s immediately soothed and appeased by his presence, something she thought she would only feel if it was Anakin who entered into the small suite. Master Kenobi’s Force signature does not sing nor blaze like her Master’s does; Master Kenobi is a tempered fire that gives off just enough warmth that Padmé cannot help but want to cling to it with her own Master so far off-world. Still, she gently grasps at Master Kenobi’s presence and is mildly pleased that he allows her, not shutting her out and opting to let himself rest against her.

He does, however, come to reside outside of her room for a moment before knocking against the panelling. He does not simply enter, he lingers patiently. 

In kind, she doesn’t rush to open the door. She ties her hair up and grabs a cloak to place around her shoulders before coming face to face with him, peering up to meet his gaze. He’s visibly tired, exhaustion clings in purple smudges beneath his blue eyes, but he’s greeting her with a soft smile. She returns it, enjoying a fleeting sense of belonging it brings her.

“Morning, Padmé,” he says, as if it’s not still firmly night-time to everyone else in the temple. “I was about to meditate and wondered if you would like to accompany me?”

He really should sleep. Padmé knows Anakin - and Commander Cody - would harp on him to rest, to sleep and recuperate, after returning from battle. But, Padmé thinks she understands. In times of turmoil, she seeks peace, above all else. Not the physical kind that slumber brings; she longs to be awash in the calm of the Force. She thinks Master Kenobi is very much the same, given how, even with sleeplessness looming over him, he wants to sit upon the floor and delve deeply into a part of himself. 

She doesn’t refuse him; she nods and draws her cloak around her body. They make space in the seated area, legs crossed in a Lotus pose, and each take their journey to steep themselves in what the Force brings them. Everything is more attuned when Padmé does as such, going far beyond the surface level of emotions that she so often feels. Concern for her Master presides over everything else, filling her with the clear knowledge that she would feel truly devastated if anything was to happen to him. She siphons it little by little into the Force, lessening the burden that presses down on her mind.

When she opens her eyes, she gazes upon Master Kenobi for a moment, merely watching his facial expression. She would expect an undisturbed and blank face, even beyond the exhaustion, but there are minute tells there. His mouth slips downwards at the edges and his brows sit at slightly different levels; he is meditating for a specific reason. Something hangs over him like a spectre, just like it does with Padmé, and she lets herself consider that it has the same root cause. 

Anakin.

At first, she is quick to reject the thought. Master Kenobi would not dare be attached to Anakin, he is a Jedi through and through, and he would not allow himself to be any more invested in Anakin than another Jedi in the temple. 

Then, she ponders on it, she mulls it over in her mind and it begins to make sense. Master Kenobi’s compassion is innate within him and Padmé cannot ignore the moments she has seen him share with Anakin. He still worries after Anakin, as if he is still his Padawan, and he is the first to be at Anakin’s side when annoyance rears its head within Anakin’s mind. Anakin is still indulged within the walls of their dormitory; he still collects odd pieces of knick-knacks and hangs posters of pod-races on the wall.

It is not the muted and near-barren cluster of rooms Padmé shared with Master Tassu. It is somewhere Anakin has settled in and Master Kenobi allows him to. Encourages it, if Padmé speculates enough, with how Master Kenobi will often procure small storage boxes for Anakin to put his scrap metal or wiring. It’s a small indulgence, but even that is heavily discouraged in the tenets of the Jedi. And that is telling for Padmé, even if it is not for others. 

She can see that these small things are signs of something, of an attachment that neither Anakin nor Master Kenobi seem to be all that keenly aware of. Perhaps they perceive it on a subconscious level, but it is unlikely that they’ve ever truly considered it. And, even to Padmé, she cannot think of Anakin without immediately binding Master Kenobi to him. It is the same in reverse, too. That is simply how it is in her mind. And, she is unlikely to be the only person in the temple with that line of thought. 

She doesn’t say anything of it, does not disturb the delicate, harmonious balance of both Master Kenobi and Anakin’s bond, nor of the moment she resides in with Master Kenobi. The sun is bound to rise within the hour and Padmé extends her legs out slightly, rolling her shoulders as she moves. The small clicks her bones make ring out loudly in the room, but Master Kenobi doesn’t appear disturbed by them, and Padmé takes time to stretch, leaning into where she feels her muscles pull. 

Despite Anakin requesting that she spend her time with someone else in the temple, when she hasn’t been fulfilling smaller duties within the temple, she’s been in the _salles_ to improve even further on her technique, speed, and stamina. She still isn’t the best lightsaber wielder of her age in the temple, and she is under no illusion that she ever will be, but she has improved. When it would take her a healthy handful of seconds over a minute to complete a complex sequence of moves, it only takes her a heartbeat less than a minute. She works until sweat drenches over her temples and dribbles from her hairline to her jaw, and even then, she tries again and again and again. 

At first, she thought it would distract her from the absence of her Master, but it only made her think of him more. He wasn’t there to stop her movements and demonstrate what she should be doing. He wasn’t there to comment on her footwork from the side-lines. He wasn’t there to help her feel wrapped up in the Force and aid in her channelling of it. He was simply gone. And it hurts something within her chest to merely not have him there. 

Instead of feeling the pleasant weight of his praise upon her, all she has to remind her of her work is the tightness that runs along her shoulders and down into her arms. 

It’s been weeks, age upon age without Anakin returning, and she knows he is not dead. Someone would have told her; Master Kenobi wouldn’t be so still; the Force wouldn’t feel as right as it does. But, she expects it, she awaits it like a phantom she cannot yet see with her own eyes. 

When she senses her anxiety begin to bark and bite again, she slips into a shallow meditation as she leans towards the floor to stretch out her inner thigh. She unleashes those inner sensations into the Force and calms once more, understanding so swiftly the entrenched source of those emotions and letting them skitter right from her mind. 

When she blinks herself back into the room, Master Kenobi is only just fluttering his eyes open to adjust to the increasing light in the room. He smiles again, just as he did when he set his eyes upon Padmé, and Padmé rights her posture back into one that is more upright. Almost mimicking what she did when she first re-centred herself, he rolls his neck and shoulders, but he stands in slow movements.

He is still exhausted; meditation has only assisted in sapping his emotional tiredness. Padmé pushes herself to her feet and pads over to the kitchenette, boiling water for tea, and Master Kenobi takes up a seat on one of the cushioned chairs. He does not ask her for the tea but he does thank her when she pours him a cup and places it in his hands, and Padmé bites her tongue to stop herself from asking an endless stream of questions. 

This war, kept so far from her sight, is a blind unknown to her, and she wants to see before she physically goes. She wants to be able to ready herself and prepare for the inevitable, but she tempers that. There is a reason as to why Master Kenobi’s first act upon returning to the temple was meditation; not sleep, not providing the council with a debrief; not eating or drinking. He came to his little pocket of relative privacy in the temple, he sought what he may think of as a fragment of Anakin’s presence in Padmé - like she does with him, and he reached out to the Force for peace. Padmé does not wish to ruin nor disturb that, so she sips her own tea and rest her hands in the warm fold of her cloak.

It’s silent for a long time, neither of them speaking and Padmé thinks Master Kenobi could be asleep until he speaks.

“It is nice to meditate with someone every so often,” He tells her. “Especially if it is someone who doesn’t fight it as much as Anakin does. Though, I can assume you would be able to understand that better than anyone else in the temple.”

Again, it’s small and it’s almost nothing if it is not looked for, but there is a deeper meaning to those words. But, she stands after hearing them, bowing her head slightly. She washes her cup with a quick rinse of soap and water, not minding that Master Kenobi doesn’t move from where he has settled.

Replaying those words in her mind, they send Padmé to her rooms smiling, knowing it is not only her who cares for her Master. She cannot truly be too at fault for feeling such an attachment if the impeccable Jedi Master Kenobi also allows himself to have one for himself.

⁂

Keeping to her word, Padmé awaits Anakin’s return in the exact spot she stood upon to see him off, and she cannot help the unbidden surge of excitement within herself. Time has moved slowly in Anakin’s absence, soothed only by the guiding presence of Master Kenobi, who teaches her anything he can in the little time he can spare. She feels different, as if bolstered by the fact she has been able to survive even slightly better than she did before becoming Anakin’s Padawan. She still gets aches, as if the dead bond between her and her old master is twitching in some phase of rigor mortis, but that is not all-consuming. 

She eats more evenly, she sleeps more steadily, and she finds herself smiling at the odd quips Master Kenobi deals when in debate. She feels brighter, the cloud in her mind receding further back, and she knows that Anakin’s presence will obliterate it to nothing the moment he steps his foot on the solid ground of the hangar. 

Padmé, however, falters when she twists at the emergence of other figures. Chancellor Palpatine comes at a slow pace, flanked by the usual entourage of guards the senate’s head is surrounded with at all times. It takes Padmé aback somewhat. Despite rumours ringing loudly of her Master being deemed the Jedi’s _‘Chosen One’,_ she cannot possibly fathom why the Chancellor would appear for Anakin’s return. Especially since muted news of victory has rung through the temple, but nothing of any great standing. At least, not when it comes to Anakin. 

But, her Master does not appear overly perplexed nor flattered by the Chancellor standing to greet him and welcome him back to Coruscant. In fact, he almost does not even acknowledge the Chancellor, not with Padmé standing with Master Kenobi hovering just behind her shoulder. 

“If I had known that all it would take for you to come and greet me whenever I get back was to have a Padawan,” Anakin opens looking over Padmé’s shoulder to Master Kenobi, “I would have requested one even sooner.”

“The novelty of being the first person you say anything to when you first arrive has already worn off, Anakin,” comes the evenly intonated response. It’s so fast and natural that it feels scripted, as if rehearsed, but Padmé knows it’s simply how they are with one another. “But, I must say, being around Padmé reminds me that Padawans who listen to their Masters are not mere myths.”

“I do listen,” Anakin insists, as if he is still a Padawan. “Just not when you’re wrong. But, I’ll take the compliment that I’ve taught Padmé well.”

Anakin looks to Padmé with a wide grin, evidently pleased to be back on Coruscant and positively glowing in the Force. 

“Something tells me that isn’t you, Anakin.”

Shrugging Master Kenobi off with a roll of his eyes, Anakin places both of his hands on Padmé’s shoulders. His hands are so unbelievably warm, his thumbs sitting just beneath her clavicles and his fingertips curling pleasantly into her exercise-taut muscles, and he looks seriously into her eyes. 

“Did you take care of yourself?” His eyes flit around her face, looking for signs that she has not been caring for herself, and heat begins to itch its way up her neck to spill out over her cheeks. Her chest stutters in place and her throat dries, looking up at him to nod slightly. “Truly?”

"Yes, Master," she reaffirms, "I trained every day, I ate at every mealtime, I meditated, and I completed all my duties within the temple."

“See, Anakin, much better behaviour than you when you were her age.”

“Perhaps, I would be better at taking care of myself if I had a Master who took care of himself, hmm?” Padmé laughs mutedly, enjoying the way in which Master Kenobi opens his mouth to retort but cannot, so he frowns for a moment before turning to pay attention to the Chancellor and his guarding entourage, who are heading in their direction. "But, it’s good to hear that you have been looking after yourself."

“Ah, Master Skywalker,” a voice Padmé can pin as the Chancellor’s ringing across the hangar floor, catching her Master’s attention. “It’s a relief to hear that your latest campaign was a success.”

“Chancellor,” Anakin shifts to greet both the newcomers, dipping his head slightly as a mark of respect.

The hands on Padmé’s shoulders fall away, but Anakin steps around to stand by her side, his hands sliding behind his back. Padmé lowers her head shyly, leaning towards her Master, not quite knowing what else to do with herself. Whilst she has always been adept with politics and has prided herself on her love for diplomacy, she has rarely ever encountered any politicians of any particular prowess, let alone the Chancellor.

“Oh, who’s this?” The Chancellor asks, Padmé aware that it’s her who is being referred to.

“This is Padmé Naberrie Amidala,” Anakin announces, reaching to touch the middle of her back with his palm, and Padmé finds it difficult to not blush when the next words are spoken with such pride: "My Padawan."

“Naberrie?” The Chancellor asks and Padmé cannot help looking up to glance at him. She knows the Chancellor hails from Naboo, too, but hearing his interest pique at the sounding of her family name triggers something within her. She cannot identify what yet, but she knows that it isn’t an entirely pleasant sensation.

She nods, not quite trusting herself to speak to him.

“Ah, you must be Ruwee Naberrie’s girl,” the Chancellor hums with a smiling familiarity.

Padmé knows her father’s name, all children of the Jedi are privy to at least that information about their background but hearing someone say her father’s name aloud prickles at the back of Padmé’s neck. She’s only ever seen the name written on a datapad; she herself has never vocalised it, not even in private. But hearing her father’s name brings about a realisation. She does not wish to discuss the family she was born to; she has an urge to withdraw and refuse to hear words be spoken about the Naberrie family. And whilst she remains steadfast, knowing that her place as a Padawan does not grant her the ability to evade the attention of the Chancellor, she drops her gaze just so. 

Gently, Anakin’s hand moves up to rest at the back of Padmé’s neck, as if he can sense her reaction to the Chancellor’s calling of her father’s name. Though, he doesn't speak up to quieten the Chancellor directly. 

Who continues on to say: “Ah, yes, Ruwee is such a great pillar of Nabooian society and, in fact, has many close friends in the senate,” the Chancellor provides, supposedly evidencing his familiarity with the Naberrie family, one that Padmé does not wish to be confronted with. “I can, in fact, see the resemblance. A beautiful girl from a beautiful family.”

There’s something unsettling about the comment that makes Padmé want to reach out and grasp at her Master’s tunic, and she knows he can sense her reaction, as his thumb begins to warm the tense line of the trapezius muscle it sits on. He’s soothing her, ever so subtly. But, what shocks Padmé is Master Kenobi.

He is the one who interrupts the conversation, jarring the Chancellor’s gaze from Padmé’s face to meet his, instead. The moment shifting question is a simple one, but Padmé can read it as Master Kenobi’s polite encouragement of a course correction — a new focus — of the conversation. “Did you have a message for the temple, Supreme Chancellor?” 

“I am here to meet with Master Yoda, as the Senate goes into session in an hour and there are some matters I must discuss with him beforehand. But, I arrived slightly early, so I thought I would see young Anakin’s safe return for myself. Especially after he led the Republic to such a hard-fought victory, like he always does.” 

The Chancellor smiles towards Anakin, something that almost looks kind and what Padmé would imagine to be grandfatherly, but the way her Master almost preens under the praise is foreign to her. It is different to the glowing happiness Anakin gives off when Master Kenobi gives him any positive response, it’s a form of validation that Padmé doesn’t truly recognise. It isn’t jealousy, but she’s hesitant to like it in the way she enjoys Anakin’s reaction to Master Kenobi. And, from what she can observe from where she stands, the Chancellor seems infinitely more interested and attentive to Anakin over Master Kenobi. Despite them both being figureheads of the Republic’s successes against the Separatists. It is not the usual awe that she sees the youngest of Initiates or non-Jedi regard Anakin and Master Kenobi with, it’s specific to Anakin. There is a connection there that Padmé cannot faithfully place and she recoils from it.

It irks her, makes her slightly uncomfortable, and she doesn’t say a thing when, out of the corner of her eye, she sees her Master glance at her quizzically. 

She hasn’t muted her feelings enough in their bond nor from the footprint she leaves in the Force, and he notices. Master Kenobi does, too. She doesn’t particularly enjoy being so blatant, but there is a feeling to the entire situation that has her actively fighting the urge to roll back onto her heels to shy away from the Chancellor. 

“Would you like for Padmé to inform Master Yoda of your arrival, Chancellor?” Master Kenobi probes, polite and cordial as ever in both his tone and facial expression. 

The Chancellor’s eyes regard Master Kenobi for a moment, his gaze altering minutely when he faces the Jedi Master to one slightly less warm. It is not hateful or vicious, just slightly less adoring and revering. Perhaps even a little guarded.

“Send Padmé for me, you need not.” Master Yoda softly interrupts, flanked by Master Windu and Master Fisto. “I am here.”

“Wonderful,” the Chancellor smiles, soundlessly clapping his hands together, his guards fanning out slightly more to allow him to move closer to the cluster of Jedi Masters that have just arrived. “Now, I shall see you soon, Skywalker, where I am sure that you will have been victorious yet again.”

The Chancellor leaves without much more fanfare, taking off towards a speeder, speaking with a slight bow down towards Master Yoda. Padmé watches them leave as Master Kenobi shudders out a slight sigh, “I’m glad that’s over.”

“What? Can’t stand to hear someone sing my praises?” Anakin huffs, teasingly, but stepping around to look towards Padmé.

“When it’s from a politician,” Master Kenobi begins to laugh, “one must always hesitate in accepting their praise.”

“Why do you say that?” Padmé questions, twisting to look at Master Kenobi and look over at his slightly smiling expression. 

It goes unspoken from her mouth but Padmé can see the shift in Master Kenobi, knowing that Anakin has returned back from the front safely, and back to their quiet life in the temple. If only for a short period.

“Obi-Wan doesn’t like politicians much,” Anakin snorts.

“And with good reason, too,” Master Kenobi asserts before narrowing his gaze at Anakin. “You don’t exactly enjoy their company either...”

“I never said I did, but we were discussing you. Not me,” Anakin defends. 

There’s a light-hearted rumble of laughter between them, one that Padmé finds infectious, unable to stop herself from smiling at them. It feels comfortable, even as they subconsciously drift into a muted silence to move through the peaceful hallways and paths of the temple. Even as they make their way to their rooms, where Master Kenobi steeps his tea, Anakin catches up with the pod racing he’s missed in his absence, and Padmé sits with her Padawan learning materials. 

Her mind, however, drifts to the Chancellor speaking her father’s name. She’s had access to it and seen it written in Basic on a datapad, but she’s never heard the words spoken. _Ruwee Naberrie_ had been letters to be read. It had not been attached to a living being who has associates, not like it is now. 

She has never met someone who has had a connection to her birth family, driving a soft splinter into what she knows of the universe. The temple is all she has ever known, all that she will likely ever know, just like all the Jedi before her. She has never had a true link nor affection towards her family — her planet and a curiosity towards her own culture are what has piqued her interest before. Never those who physically gave her life. And, she has never wished for that to be pressed upon her. She could simply not fathom why the Chancellor would assume she would wish to hear such a connection, to know any detail further than what she already knows.

It distracts her from learning about the details of the temple’s archives and library systems. It has her glancing upwards through the windows, towards the stars, in the direction she is sure Naboo surely lies.

“You know, Madame Jocasta Nu won’t be happy to see you slacking off on her assigned readings,” Anakin reminds her without removing his eyes from the race being displayed in front of him. When Padmé glances around, she cannot see Master Kenobi, but he feels close by; meditating in the room he shares with Anakin. “But, I won’t tell her, if you don’t.”

Padmé finds the smile that spread across her face completely involuntary, but it doesn’t smother the troubles furling up in her chest. 

“But, what you should tell me, is what’s bothering you. I can sense your…” Anakin blinks once, trying to figure out which word would best describe what he’s feeling in the Force, “distrait.”

Her jaw clenches, brows furrowing above her eyes, to set her face into a tense frame. She knows she can tell him anything, to seek guidance from him that she’s unlikely to get so honestly from anyone else in the temple. But, the contentment that had rippled from him under the obvious praise of the Chancellor keeps her tongue pressed to the back of her teeth. The words want to bite their way out, to ask all of the questions flurrying around her head.

But, only two manage to pry their way out and be spoken into the space between them. 

“Why would the Chancellor mention my family like he did, if he knows I was raised in the temple?” The first comes easily, trilled out in rapid fire, but the second catches in her throat. Her voice wavers and it cracks, no matter how firm she tries to stay in asking: “And why was my first thought after he had said my father’s name, that I did not wish to know anything more?”

The bluish light cast from the pod race clears from the room at the wave of Anakin’s hand. One of his greatest interests is brushed aside at the mere sound of upset in how Padmé speaks, and she cannot deny to herself the warmth that spreads upwards from the pit of her stomach. It does not compete with the tangled yet biting sensation that nips at her nerves, but the recognition of her meaning something important to him is impossible to ignore.

Anakin tries to start, trying to search for what he really wants to say with his mouth slightly agape. There’s an expression that flashes across Anakin’s face before it’s pushed down, smothered into something more neutral. Still, that expression is one that Padmé knows too well. She’s seen it contorting her own face. It is the unrestrained pain of a grief so cutting that it feels like a vibroblade cutting down your throat to your navel. It’s a struggle for Anakin to even verbalise, mirroring Padmé’s own inability to speak out difficult subjects. “With the Chancellor… I don’t know. I could sense how much you shrunk into yourself when he said those things. And, not wanting to know more isn’t always uncommon. I know my mother but never knew anything of my own father.”

There’s a quiet moment where Anakin drifts into his own head for a moment, before muttering: “Or, if I even had one to begin with…”

He regains himself swiftly, though, blinking away yet another emotion, but one Padmé cannot read nor recognise. She bites her lip but relaxes as he continues. 

“Sometimes, not wanting more is natural when you have all that you need. If you are fulfilled by being a Jedi, it is unsurprising that you wouldn’t seek anything more. The temple has been the only home you have known, and the way of the Jedi has been the only life you have ever led, so it will be different to what the Chancellor knows of the world.”

“Anakin’s right,” another voice, Master Kenobi, calls from the doorway of his room with Anakin. “In the Chancellor’s world, connections and relationships are how people gauge each other and grow to know one another. It may not be like that for all non-Jedi, but it certainly is within the realm of politics. For him, knowing your father establishes something between you and him, which many non-Jedi would be receptive to. You will have seen it in your diplomatic missions with Master Tassu, that politicians and diplomats grasp at both the professional and personal to create links and establish rapport… But, I think you were merely startled by the fact that such a technique was used on you and using a subject that is rather unfamiliar.”

Master Kenobi moves to stand beside where Anakin sits, both of them looking at Padmé with encouraging expressions, and she feels lighter for it. She thinks, perhaps, she shouldn’t have leapt into her thoughts with the immediacy in which she had. 

“It is not only praise that you should hesitate in accepting from politicians, it is almost anything. Their words are always weighted with something you should not take to heart. If you must, meditate on what has been said and try to find your own answers.” Master Kenobi places one hand on Anakin’s shoulder and gestures to Padmé’s datapad with the other, “But, first you should try to finish your reading, no matter what your Master has told you.”

At that, the Jedi Master makes his way to find something to eat and Padmé finds herself drawn to looking at her Master. She pulls her feet up onto her seat, leaning her datapad onto her thighs, peeking over to look at Anakin where he sits. His armour is to his side, but other than that, Padmé would hardly ever be able to tell that he had been on the front. His eyes are bright and clear, his mouth twitches competitively, and he bounces his left leg on the ball of his foot. His hair falls slightly into his face, growing out solidly from his cropped Padawan cut. 

Padmé thinks he truly looks beautiful as the daylight fades out and the lighting of the room casting him in a warmer glow. His skin shimmers as if truly golden and she wonders if his cheeks feel as soft as they look. 

She blinks rapidly when his eyes meet hers, caught in her adoring gaze at him. Her cheeks flush where they are hidden behind her knees, which only worsens when Anakin grins at her. It’s the smile that harnesses the brightness of twin suns and causes the heat of a desert planet to creep up her nape, right to the tip of her ears. And she cannot think of any better feeling than to be on the receiving end of Anakin’s visible happiness. Not with how it replaces the snarled-up knots that had been occupying her chest since meeting the Chancellor with the most weightless of feelings. She feels as if she’s both melting and floating; she never wants that moment to end. She’d do anything to keep him by her side and to keep him smiling.

She thinks of what he said to her, about not missing or craving anything more in life when you have everything you need, and with the soft noises of Master Kenobi warming his food and Anakin grinning over the sounds of his pod race, Padmé doesn’t need to wonder why she has no craving for her own flesh and blood. She has those who bring her comfort and safety, and even if she isn’t supposed to be attached to them, she still has them. And she wants to spend her future proving to them that they have her, too.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on twitter, i'm _[@bloodrhodonite](https://twitter.com/bloodrhodonite)_.
> 
> or, _[talk to me on curiouscat!](https://curiouscat.me/sithanakin)_
> 
> (plus, if anyone wants to be my beta for this fic, i will not say no, just drop me a message)


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